


Late Night Tales

by VenerandeGarden



Category: Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) (2020), Hannibal (TV), Joker (2019)
Genre: Alice in Wonderland References, Arkham Asylum, Gotham City - Freeform, Hannibal and Will are married, Hannibal in Batman universe, Hannibal is my Alice, In their very specific way, Joker is a multiple figure, M/M, Polyamory, Sort Of, cannibalism implied, inspired by Dave McKean's Arkham Asylum, post Hannibal season 3, post Joker 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-29
Updated: 2020-09-02
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:29:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 20
Words: 40,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23263990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VenerandeGarden/pseuds/VenerandeGarden
Relationships: Hannibal Lecter/Arthur Fleck, Will Graham & Harleen Quinzel, Will Graham/Arthur Fleck, Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Comments: 4
Kudos: 37





	1. Chapter 1

Hannibal cuts the engine off. He’s in front of the massive shape of the Arkham asylum. It’s winter, on a late afternoon. The night has already fallen, it’s a bit colder than usual. He stares at the hundreds of windows glowing in the dark, thinking. The hospital stares back.  
In the crowded hallway, he asks for the person in charge of his arrival. A middle-aged employee browses his antique paper agenda. The guy looks peevish, worn out. An orange cat is lying on the counter, not paying attention either.

“Are animals allowed in this place? Unusual.”  
“Only cats. For rats.”

Miss Quinzel is the one who hired him. She comes hastily, they shake hands. She shows him around, presents him to his future colleagues. She’s young and looks like those who made their way by themselves. She’s happy to see him and that is refreshing.

The asylum is a huge decaying maze. It stinks, more than all the places like that he already knows. Results of the low budgets and careless politics. The city is known for that. New arrivals, if qualified and wishing to benefit from certain favors, are asked to contribute. And Hannibal has needs.

The next days, he studies plans, patients’ files for which he is in charge, and some who piqued his interest. He takes a look at colleagues' backgrounds too. Working in a hospital reminds him of his early years when he was a medicine student. He starts consultations, visits the place by himself, and finds out that none of the plans are rights.  
It appears that some patients come and go as they please. That there are places where some of the medical staff is not allowed to go, and some where no one wants to go. Everyone agrees to say that the hospital is haunted.

One week later, Hannibal invites Miss Quinzel for dinner, telling that he wants her to meet his husband. He always talks about Will, it’s like she knows him already. She agrees. He mentions that she can come with someone, she says that she will be alone.

*******************

Will Graham chews a piece of the veal sauté he cooked with Hannibal for their new acquaintance, looking at the young woman sitting at their table. She’s smart, smiles a lot and she might be intense sometimes. He decides that she’s here for good company. Definitely not a target.  
He has a huge pile of targets on his desk, all robbed from the Arkham Institute. An insane amount of possible choices, a lot of them with startling nicknames. Days and days of hunting are awaiting him. But does he want to hunt?

They bought a big property near the nicest areas of the city's suburbs. Still too close for his taste, more practical for Hannibal. He decided to convert it into a farm, an animal shelter. Dogs, horses, cows, and sheep are coming. It looks like they are here for a long time.  
Hannibal has opened a practice in town, with a part of his time devoted to Arkham. He spends more time in the hospital than expected. He even allowed himself to rearrange the place called his office. A Persian rug now decorates the floor, with a few things of this kind. He can't be too ostentatious.

Colleagues appreciate him. He has long talks with Miss Quinn, that he now names Harleen. The three of them have dinner together regularly. In his Arkham’s office, it appears that another one likes his rug: the orange cat. It comes and goes, sometimes scratching it, most of the time sleeping on it. He doesn’t mind, it’s an old one.

One evening a riot breaks out on lower floors. Usual here, but it’s the first since his coming. Harleen shows up in his office. She looks pissed, refuses to go down there. He courteously offers his help. She accepts it, saying that she must be out before going insane. After hesitating, she asks him to check on a patient named Fleck.  
She warns him about the guy before disappearing. He doesn't know how to take it; obviously, a lot of the Arkham inmates are highly dangerous ones. He read a little about him. It’s a nice story, but there’s a lot like this one here. His nickname is Joker. Make-up, guns, schizophrenia. Gotham fellow.

********************

Downstairs it’s mayhem. The smell increase. Detergent, blood, fire. The neon lights are flickering, the patients are howling. The guards are trying to restore order, most of the time by inflicting violence. None of the colleagues that he knows are visible. It looks like it’s not a place for them, that there is no one qualified for that.  
He goes to the right block, to the cell number he was given, not sure to find the one he’s looking for. Most of the cells are open. Everyone runs. He may have fled. When he finds out, It’s dark but someone’s here. He can smell him. Blood, sweat, tensed nerves. He searches the light.

No make-up tonight but half of his face is painted red. Blood on the white hospital clothes, blood everywhere, too much for only one person, or this one must be dead. He is very alive, thanks or not. Hannibal takes a step, trying not to slip.  
Joker, Arthur Fleck or someone else, who knows, watches him approach. He wears no handcuffs obviously. Hannibal comes quietly, sits on the bed. Serene, trying to build confidence. He smiles.

“Hello Arthur.”

Arthur is leaning against the wall, half lying on his stained blankets.

“Hi” he croaks.

He closes his eyes a moment and then reopens them. Beautiful eyes, Hannibal sees. Good timing too, he notices. They let a moment pass, some seconds to get used to each other.

“You are bleeding. Can I have a look?”  
“ Are you a doctor? Are there any doctors here?”  
“ I am. New one.”  
“Sounds nice.”

He brings himself closer, Hannibal clears the hair from his face, cleans it, and inspects the wound which extends from his forehead to his temple.

“You need stitches.”  
“You can sew me back if you want.”  
“Huge project I’m afraid.” He pauses. “Sorry for the joke. For your wound, I can do that. But I have no anesthetics.”

The wounded man looks at him silently and suddenly hysterically laughs.

“I like jokes. And I don’t care for anesthetics.”  
“I heard about your jokes.”  
“They are awful.”  
“Not all of them.”  
“Kind doctor. Please take care of me if you can.”  
“ If you say so.”

Hannibal starts working. Arthur doesn’t react to the pain; it even looks like it soothes him. He’s probably on drugs. Familiar with self-harm too. The stitches will not take a long time and he will be home for dinner. But dinner brings him back to his patient. Arthur is extremely thin, looks half dead from hunger. He should probably bring him food.


	2. Chapter 2

Dinner time. Will Graham takes another sip of his wine, asks his husband:

“Do you plan on eating him?”  
“Not in his current state. He’s presently more chemicals than flesh.”  
“But you thought about it.”  
“What would we be doing here otherwise?”  
“So that’s how sometimes medicine saves men.”  
“We should drink to that.”

Will goes out of the vet pharmacy, wrinkling his nose. There’s garbage everywhere; this city crawls under his skin. He tries to get to his car as quickly as possible but hears someone calling his name. It’s Harleen.  
She looks overjoyed to see him, offers to go for a drink. He hesitates, wanted so badly to go home. She says that he would save her life if he comes. That she needs someone to talk to. Please Please Please. God, he doesn’t know her so well. But she’s nice to him so he goes for it.

They end up in this club, listening to this girl singing, drinking too much. She mentions her patient then seems to realize that she can’t say a lot. So instead she rambles about the singer, gobbles up whiskeys like milk. And it’s like holidays, he must admit. He should call Hannibal and say that he doesn’t know when he will come back. Forgets. And yeah, the singer is damn beautiful.

He wakes up on a couch, with a hyena next to him. A real hyena. He’s got one howling in his head too. Hangover. It hurts badly. He’s in a small messy apartment, probably Harleen’s, he hopes. He cannot remember a lot. The animal looks at him quietly.

Hannibal interrupts him at this point. Not that he shows it, but Will knows that he likes it a lot

“A hyena. Interesting choice.”  
“As I say. I don’t even know how she managed it. I mean, it’s a wild animal and quiet as a dog. It certainly can be dangerous, but this one is very very well trained.”  
“Gotham necessities, I suppose. Miss Quinn is decidedly an intriguing person. I’m also happy that you made a friend.”  
“My head still aches but it was a nice evening. Do you have more about the riot in Arkham?”  
“Not a lot I’m afraid. Someone was killed in Arthur Fleck’s cell. He’s possibly the one who killed, though he claims that it’s not the case. And the body disappeared.”

Will looks at him, puzzled.

“She talked a bit about him. Evasively. It looks like she’s struggling with the subject.”  
“ I should ask more but I don’t want to push. Delicate matter indeed.”  
“She cares about him”  
“Just as much as she hates him.”  
“You should ask him. Or maybe not. I have the feeling that we could dive into gossip.”  
“A body disappeared!”  
“Don’t say that you really care. But you love gossip, I know that.”  
“Not at all.”

Hannibal doesn’t look so much upset. The truth is, he’s sparkling with joy. Will sometimes feels a bit ashamed.

**********************

Arthur Fleck is under high restrains. Straitjacket, a cell with reinforced surveillance. Difficult to reach for a meal. It takes Hannibal a little while to convince everyone that he can handle it and that he needs a bit of privacy. He also manages to have a table and some chairs, for what he is extremely glad.  
He removes the straitjacket himself. Checks the stitches. It heals pretty well.

“I brought you Japanese food. Bento.”

Rice and vegetables. A few of meat. Something light to begin with. Arthur rises on shaky legs, looks at the shimmering lacquer boxes on the table, black with golden flower patterns. Out of place.  
He watches Arthur struggling with food. Chewing, swallowing. It takes time. Morsels hardly pass his throat. Not easy with chopsticks either, so Hannibal feeds him. He wonders what he would look like with more weight. Imagines flourishing flesh on these bones, the skin growing brighter.

“Do you like the food?”  
“ Yeah. Never ate something like that in my whole life.”  
“Fine. I can bring you more.”  
“What do you want in return, kind doctor? Besides… watching me eating?”  
“Tell me what happened during the riot.”

Arthur smiles. A crooked smile, snake-like eyes.

“I was attacked.”  
“Who attacked you?”  
“His name is Payne, I think so.”  
“Preston Payne? This patient dies ten years ago. A celebrity.”  
“Maybe it was his son? How could we know?”  
“Why are you lying to me, Arthur?”  
“I barely recognized him. All this mud…”  
“There was no mud in your cell. Only blood… No corpse either.”  
“I’m sorry. I can’t remember.”  
“Why were you attacked?”  
“Something happened downstairs.”  
“The riot, yes. What caused it?”  
“What could cause a riot here, doctor, I’d love to tell. Just look around you?”

Hannibal muses.

“You said downstairs. You were downstairs.”  
“I mean… Further downstairs.”  
“What is further downstairs? Do you talk about the archives?”  
“No no no no. Further.”  
“Tell me more.”  
“You might not like it. You might say that I lie.”

*****************

Later, in Miss Quinzel’s office:

“Arthur Fleck says that someone came from the basement and attacked him. You know him well Harleen. Has he ever said that kind of thing? Is it a usual trait of his psychosis?”

She’s not happy to be questioned, he can see it. Quite legitimate. He’s her patient, not Hannibal’s. But she sent him there so she owes him answers, she can admit.

“The underground. That belongs to the whole Arkham’s psychosis, Hannibal. It’s mythology.”  
“He mentions Preston Payne and mud. Did he have access to the files?”  
“All the people here know his story. Even you, know it.”  
“You were afraid to go there. Afraid of your patient? Of other things?”  
“Like what?”  
“Ghosts?”  
“You ask me if I really believe that the hospital is haunted. I am a scientist, as you are. However. Arkham is special. You already know it. It can affect your psyche if you don’t take precautions. And sometimes, precautions are: not going downstairs. I went there too often. These things that you can see. That you can do. It’s like the hospital could poison your mind. And it’s terribly addictive.”  
“Collective psychosis. You say that its mythology, and then that you can’t go there for reasons. What should I think, Harleen?”  
“I say that you can’t trust Arthur. I say, as a rational person, that I am aware that all of this and even my present speech are aberrations. Still… Yes, strange things happen in the hospital basement. And I would like to say that you shouldn’t go, but I know you’re a stubborn one. And obviously, It’s the only way for you to know.”


	3. Chapter 3

Hannibal is sitting at his desk, thinking.  
Does something in Arkham escape rationality? Chaotic events put aside, nothing unusual happened when he first visited Arthur, nor after. The place is left to sink and that in an astounding way. Patients and doctors included might tell themselves stories, yet he knows Harleen enough to trust her abilities, her intelligence. Strange however that they only talked about that now. She hid things and still does. In a way, she manipulates him. Very interesting. He looks around, realizes that it’s late, time to go home.

He starts tidying up his things; his eyes fall on the cat, lying on his old rug, staring at him with golden eyes, his tail beating slowly against the ground. The animal visits his office every day now. Maybe it's time to give him a name.

Seeing him moving, he gets up, approaches the half-open door in almost silent steps. Turns around, takes a look at Hannibal like he’s waiting for him. When Hannibal reaches the door, the cat rushes down the hall. There again, few steps later, he turns around, sits down and waits. Precedes him in the stairs. Whenever Hannibal thinks he's gone, he reappears further away. The cat leads him to a staircase in front of which he sits another time. Hannibal pauses.

He goes past cat and stairs, stops again, turns around. The cat is in the middle of the corridor, sat, his tail beating against the ground. It looks like he's smiling. Hannibal is about to continue, but something is holding him back. He comes back a few steps and yes, the cat goes down these stairs.

He recognizes them, leading to the floor where the riot took place. He can't repress a smile. Follows. He soon passes this stage and gets to the ground floor. He could leave the hospital now, but his small guide says otherwise. They both take the path to the basement.

A part of it devoted to the archives, another is the morgue, as well as cells in which unwilling patients are put down. They reach the third floor of the basement, passing long corridors and disused cells. It mainly smells like rot and dust. Another series of stairs, hallways, cages. This part is definitely not in the plans.  
Hannibal sometimes glances inside those cells, realizing that some have inhabitants. Some are alone, others are not. When it’s not presences that he barely guesses in the dark, what he sees in dim light is quite astonishing.

The smell has changed, just like the atmosphere. Humidity, mildew but also skin, fever, sickness. It grows stronger. The temperature has dropped. His breath now steams the air. He lingers in front of one cell.

A silhouette takes shape here. Barely human, more of a massive creature perched on a couch that looks really like a large mushroom. No arms visible, its heavy head buried into what is supposed to be the shoulders. Its skin almost glows in the dark, in bizarre green tones. Hannibal seriously wonders if he had been drugged. The creature stares, and a moment later, talks. A rusty, extremely slow voice.

“Hello passenger. Are you searching for something?”

Hannibal hesitates. Answering? Does he talk to someone real? When could he have ingested hallucinogens without noticing it? Something in the air? He has no clue, he realizes. He just followed a cat in the asylum’s underground. He decides to answer since he always plays the game.

“ Someone told me about this place. I was curious.”

The creature sighs loudly. A pity he can’t clearly see its face.

“A curious one. So there’s still some. And who talks to you?”

Another time, Hannibal muses. Gives the name which appears the more appropriate.

“Joker tells me.”

Long pause passes.

“Joker. Which one, my boy?”

Hannibal flinches at the familiarity. But probably none of this is real.

“They are several?”

A laugh escapes the monstrous silhouette.

“Possibly so. You’re near your goal, Dear Hannibal. Still follow the cat for a little while, and you will find out.”

The form dissolves into darkness. Suddenly, he’s alone. The lights seem to brighten a bit. It’s less cold. He looks around. Does he see an orange tail at the end of the corridor? He decides to take the invitation.

Few steps later, he hears noises. Voices. On top of old rusty cupboards, at the corners of the doors he passes, the head of the cat or another part of the animal appears, flickering.  
Voices increase. Now he hears music, like that of an old gramophone. Shouts, laughs. He’s now in front of a door ajar, behind which there are bright lights. He pushes it.

It’s crowded here. It could have been these restrooms in hospitals where patients meet, do collective activities, or simply stick together. There is plenty like this upstairs.  
The place seems to have been abandoned for a while, its aspect now left to the attention of those who took over the premises. It's the atmosphere of a Grand-Guignol cabaret, a game room, a tavern. It’s noisy. It also smells like a tavern.

Hannibal refrains from wrinkling his nose, realizes that no one seems to notice his arrival. Faces are just as surprising as those he came across lately. But this time they are in full light. Some seem to have undergone medical experiences which it is surprising they survived. So that’s Arkham underground. He should have expected something like that. Others are strangely familiar, reminding him pictures he has seen in too old records. The story of Preston Payne comes back to him.

Again, he is trying to detect on himself the signs that maybe he was drugged. But his body and mind behave normally, which proves nothing. At least it seems that he retains his physical and intellectual abilities.

Suddenly he sees the one he claimed to be looking for. Not that he recognizes him from his personal memories. He’s in full makeup and colorful clothes. He hardly looks like the Arthur Hannibal met. But he has seen pictures and videos. That’s him. Joker. He’s sat at one of these kinds of game tables, in an old armchair, and yes he looks a bit like a prince on his throne. Tables and chairs on a kind of platform, adding to the effect. The prince looks bored. Hannibal approaches.

The clown turns his head towards him, a real smile overlapping the large crimson one painted on his face. Arthur’s tormented features have disappeared under make-up, leaving room for another face. His dark, thick eyebrows are now invisible under the blue triangles that surround his eyes. His brown hair now green, thrown back on his skull.

When he sees Hannibal, he has this small gesture, this graceful shoulder movement, so womanish. He stands up and moves with surprising lightness. He goes down the few steps that separate them, butterfly-like.

“My sweet doctor! So happy to see you here!”


	4. Chapter 4

He approaches, sliding theatrically his arm under Hannibal’s as if they were in a musical, just about to walk away. Hannibal smiles courteously, another time playing the game. Around, some observe, most ignore. One or two of those who noticed stare with the intensity of madmen. In the assembly, Hannibal sees others made up like Joker. It seems that the sound of music increases.  
The one next to him bows his head gracefully and whispers in his ear:

“Let’s go to a more intimate place to chat.”

Hannibal nods and lets himself be led. They cross the room under the fluctuating attention of its occupants. One sings, another one cries, we hear groans and laughter; someone shouts something about a queen of disaster. At this Joker laughs, rolls his eyes.

The place in which Hannibal is taken looks very much like a theater dressing room. It has his mirror surrounded by lights, clothes racks full of bright-colored outfits. The shelf is full of makeup and brushes, with a late seventies rotating chair in front. The small room is in shades of red, with old cinema posters and an authentic phonograph with a horn that Hannibal would have not dismissed in his personal collection. He wonders how the object got here. He also finds out the orange cat curled up into a ball on a small bed in the back of the room, between messy blankets and pillows.

“A very cozy place you have here, he says to his companion.”  
“Isn’t it?” Replied Joker with a more high pitch voice than the first time they met, a more seductive one.

Hannibal notices all the subtle nuances between Arthur and his costumed counterpart. He knows that the person he met in his cell is much closer to the one in front of him than the man he was in the past. The two have melted more and more with years of custody, but there are still differences.  
The one in front of him knows that he’s carefully observed. He’s used to that, and uses that. He looks at Hannibal, then sits in front of the mirror.

“Tell me how was your journey, Doctor. Do you like what’s going on in Arkham’s underground?”  
“A very intriguing place. I'm not entirely sure of who I talked to, but I have to say that I find the experience quite fascinating. May I know why I was brought here, according to you”  
“Harleen sends you to me, I suppose.”  
“So she did. With the cat’s help. Can you tell me more about the why?”  
“She doesn’t want to see me anymore, so she refers me to another psychiatrist.”

There’s sadness on his face, really. Maybe even a bit of wrath. Such mundane feelings that it’s almost touching.

“What brings her to this decision, Arthur?” He deliberately uses the name he knows denied when he’s Joker.

The man hesitates. Hannibal obtains a small smile on a wounded face. Astonishing how emotions cross layers of make-up. How Arthur and Joker are all about emotions. A very expressive psychopath. He could even say, a sentimental one. Of course he manipulates, but feelings are undeniably real. He’s even more sincere now than when he visited him in his cell. The things we can say behind masks.

“We went beyond the patient-therapist relationship I’m afraid. And there are certain things that Harleen is reluctant to handle. That said, I can understand. Sometimes it’s me, sometimes it’s not. Oh, She’s very tolerant, she really tried to help. She came very close. She’s a bit crazy too, you know.”  
“Why do you choose to use the term tolerant?”  
“Our relationship was not an exclusive one!”

A provocative gaze. Clearly he wants to replay it. Hannibal is not surprised. However, new elements pique his curiosity.

“How many personas do you think you harbor in your head?”  
“I talk about a real person. Several in fact. But mostly one.”  
“Another patient? Another therapist?”

Small smile, tentative.

“Maybe a ghost.”

Hannibal waits, eyebrows raised.

“Doctor! I thought that making you come here would make you believe!”  
“As a rule, “Ghost” and “real person” are rather opposite notions.”  
“But we are in Arkham!”  
“In your personal dressing room, talking about romance.”

A larger smile, a laugh.

“Yeah. I confess about my disastrous romances. And you are not even chocked!”  
“I’m not a judge.”

He looks like he doesn’t believe that, like he doesn’t really care. Instead, he goes to the phonograph, puts a record on. An old, slightly garish waltz starts escaping the horn. He turns around and reaches out to Hannibal:

“Shall we dance?”

Hannibal obliges, wandering about the dream quality of events. He still doesn’t feel his perceptions altered or his lucidity diminished. So he takes Joker in his arms.  
He’s light as a feather, almost ethereal. Hannibal realizes how easy it would be to break these bones, to take away this insanely fragile life. Also easy to imagine that he would disappear like smoke when dead. He smells cigarettes and make-up, and underneath he recognizes a very familiar perfume, mainly composed of jasmine. Harleen wears it. It’s slightly different here, each skin giving perfumes their own tones. On Harleen it’s like a blooming garden, on him it’s like a picture of it. The faded colors of a memory, and even maybe a false one. So melancholic and surprisingly pleasant.

Maybe the Arkham underground effect, he will call it this way, has transformed his smell. It seems that it is not the case, but he’s tempted not to believe his senses so much.

That said he lets himself enjoy the dance. Can’t deny his partner’s talent. Gracious and flexible. These eyes that don’t fear death, which call it with such teasing irony. He looks at the birth scar above his lips, half painted red, then the fresh one with stitches still in place, entirely painted white. Under his left hand, the tiny waist in which echoes the hips movements. He struggles with the urge to shatter and destroy, taste here and now the exquisite delicacy of his own sadism. Not exactly a loss of control, but he admits that something is looming. This weird vicious tenderness towards a prey, that so rarely shows up.

The waltz ends, the dancers move away, but just before Hannibal brushes his partner's hand with his lips. He can practically see his companion blushing under his makeup. How charming.  
Letting him regain his senses, Hannibal’s eyes fall over the clothes rack nearby. Male and female clothing. These confirm a certain good taste in extravagance that he must concede to the one they belong to.

He brushes with fingers the shimmering velvet of a gorgeous scarlet dress. Most of these clothes are old and sometimes worn but carefully chosen, nicely cut and well maintained. Some darned in a skillful and nearly invisible manner.

“This one belonged to Harleen.” Joker says breaking silence.  
“I would have loved to see her wearing it.”  
“She wore it only for me.”  
“A shame I may say, but I can understand. So this was not part of the non-exclusive dimension of your relationship?”  
“There are certain things that we are not able to share.”

For the first time, something dangerous passes on his face. Strong feelings intertwined, giving him this expression of wrath and terror mixed that he tries to hold back in a monstrous smile. Hannibal wonders if the pseudo-bulbar affect is about to show up, but no. More certainly, that was a warning.  
His features get even harder when he adds:

“You show a lack of fear that is only matched by your lack of morality, doctor. Makes me wonder who Harleen may have referred me to.”  
“Do you intend to impress me? Or even frighten me? Maybe some drugs keep me from reacting as I should.” He says with his most neutral face.  
“Drugs? You think you have been drugged?”

Somehow, this lightens Joker’s mood. Hannibal continues:

“It could be, and it would explain a lot about the strange things I saw here don’t you think so?”  
“Yes… Or maybe you are just in a dream, and suddenly I will jump to your throat with a big knife. But you will just wake up in your bed, a little wet.”

The suggestive tone is back. He holds Hannibal’s gaze, then the latter asks in a quiet, nearly hypnotic voice:

“Will you attack me?”  
“Did you forget who I am?”  
“So I should be careful.”  
“Yeah… Maybe?”

Hannibal approaches, curious of what might happen:

“Don’t you trust Harleen’s choices? What did you do that could cause her anger? It looks so much more complicated than what you just told me.”  
He intents this as flattery. The one in front of him has the entirety of his attention.

“I did so many things… Can you imagine how much?” The thin clown simpers so nicely.

“Maybe I’m not affected by potential drugs.”

Hannibal invades the space of the other, wanting to know his smell at this moment. Stronger, with an extra touch of arousal. His voice is practically purring.

“Harleen now wants me dead, he adds. At least a part of her.”

He leans on the mirror shelf, slightly stretching his legs to make room. They are face to face now. Eyes to eyes. Hannibal contemplates the darker circle around his irises, the luminous blue-green inside. He knows that there will be no answers here, only honey traps.

“Now that I know your place, you should discover mine. Will you pay me a visit? I know you can do that.”

There is also white paint on his lashes. He comes nearer, and with his tongue, tastes a hint. Fairy powder.


	5. Chapter 5

Will is sprawled in his husband’s arms, listening to the story with rapt attention.

“And what did it taste like?”  
“Decaying childhood. It had something of these powders my mother used. Very old memories.”  
“He reminds you of your childhood?”

Hannibal smiles, brushes Will’s hair with lips.

“Broken childhood, barely remembered. But you read the file.”  
“How sentimental. That is far from uncommon.”  
“Are you jealous?”  
“I was waiting for the question. Flirting is new.”  
“He was flirting.”  
“And so do you. I know who you are Hannibal. And I know when there’s something else. You didn’t make a decision yet, but you will. You’re curious.”

Cunning boy. He’s curious too.

“I can admit that there’s an attraction. That doesn’t only come from him. Harleen wrapped a gift for us. Maybe I’m enamored with their dynamic. She’s a clever person, and he’s a lovely boy.”  
“You miss socializing. I rarely saw you so receptive… so open.”

Hannibal looks at him, not restraining a suggestive smile. Will is suddenly so much aware of the wetness between their entwined legs. He nearly blushes remembering how newness influenced their lovemaking.

“I was not talking about that!”  
“Aren’t you tired of our usual way to hunt?”  
“Indeed. We came to this city to feast on a unique and incredible amount of evil minds but hunger faded.”  
“Too many preys. Weakens the interest.”  
“And then came Harleen. As if she were aware of secret needs we ignored at the time. She hired you. If I was paranoid, I would say that she’s aware.”  
“Fate has sometimes strange ways.”  
“Did you find out if you were drugged?”

He knows by asking this question that Hannibal might struggle. He likes so much being in control. Things happen when he’s not.

“It’s uncertain. Exams prove that I was not, but there are still a few possibilities. The creature I saw before I met Arthur as Joker might be some extraordinary proof of abnormal humanity. Asylums’ mission has been for long to hide the existence of such people, the fact that they could live.”  
“Someone we could have met in an old freak show? As a doctor you must know what is possible and what is not.”

Hannibal gives a long look at his exquisite mate trying to provoke him.

“The glowing was probably the strangest element. It can also be explained by some kind of paint or light effect. Some places, with what they bring to our consciousness, have the power to influence how we perceive them. Or maybe I have found the door conducing to another world.”  
“You would love to face supernatural elements, don’t you? You waited that all your life. A God answer. And that’s exactly what retains you in Arkham. This possible something beyond reality. And that’s also what Harleen is fleeing from. That’s the other part of the gift.”  
“Would you not like to unwrap it with me?”

Will lets his lips wander on Hannibal's neck. Sometimes he would love to sink his teeth in here, deeper than usual.

*************

Night in Gotham. Not a club this time but a park. When Harleen told him about this place, he was sincerely surprised that it was real. Within, the noises of the streets are more muted than anywhere else in the city. There’s even a pond among the trees. The full moon shines, reflected in it.  
Harleen is quieter than usual, plagued with some melancholia that he hadn’t seen before.

She took her impressive companion with her, whose name is Bruce. He guesses that there’s something about it but doesn’t feel allowed to ask. She was at first a brilliant scientist, a joyful acquaintance, now she’s an enigma. She’s not exactly the kind of person Hannibal would be attracted by, if he knew her outside her professional area. Tonight, with her extravagant clothes and her pensive face, she looks at first sight as a lost teenage girl, an impression that he knows entirely wrong.

“I have something for you Will. Something that I intended for Hannibal but now you look more and more as the right person. Not that I don’t trust him, and it’s also for him. But I need your look on it first. It’s something that could highly compromise me. We don’t know each other for a very long time but I trust my instinct. I had to learn to trust it considering events I’ve been through in the place where I work.”

He’s not entirely sure to like what’s going on. He can’t help being a bit harsh.

“Concernes Arkham?”  
“You’re right. I need a professional insight as much as a sympathetic one.”

He’s even more suspicious.

“My specialty is more empathy than sympathy Harleen. There’s a nuance.”  
“You are sooo grumpy!” She laughs a bit. “Yeah I know that, and I also know that despite yourself you like me.”

He can’t deny it, but at least he must warn her.

“This could be a huge mistake, this trust. Instinct can take us by surprise.”

He can’t help his own amusement. He took so much from his terrifying husband, God helps.  
She seems overly confident, but cunning too. This is her mask. People in this city are sometimes such… figures.

“Hannibal told me you worked for the FBI. You were the best. You will understand what is in this file and you will understand beyond.”  
“A file! Oh damn… the irony of things. My entire life is surrounded by files.”

She smiles ingenuously, or maybe not at all.

“What do you want from me with that?” He continues. “Must I give you the name of the guilty one?”  
“I know his name, it’s not that part. It’s more of… a legacy.”  
“A legacy? What makes you think I will accept it?”

She’s a bit more serious now.

“I have no idea. I must try. This file is that of one of my patients. You know which one.”  
“You bequeath his file to me and Hannibal. Do you intend to disappear after, letting us settling his case, is it something like that?”

He feels the irony of his own words, blames himself for that. She probably misses the point.

“I need a new life, indeed. Something less dark than what I had. I mean... I enjoyed it for a time. Certainly more than I should have. But now there’s someone else, someone that I must protect from all this… craziness.”

He knows that she’s aware, but saying it loudly looks somehow necessary:

“That’s a bit strange. It’s usual for psychiatrists to refer their patients to a colleague when something comes out and makes their relationship unsuitable for therapy. It works like this. But you talk about a legacy. You need more. And further, you involve the two of us.”  
“You’re right. When I met you, and even before, when he spoke about you, I realized that you and Hannibal were an indivisible entity. What I need is not only his therapist's abilities.”  
“It’s clearly not just a professional thing.”  
“It’s not.”

She now looks at him into the eyes. There’s a challenge here.

“What do you want from us Harleen?” He finally asks.  
“I can’t let it go like this. Can’t let him go. I need the two of you to understand and to take care of him as much as you can, without taking account of what he became to me. Maybe the two of you will have the strength to do what I was unable to do alone.”  
“That’s a big part! Maybe we won’t be able; maybe he doesn’t want that too. A legacy… maybe he has his opinion too? He’s your lover, am I wrong? What brings you to this decision? The night we spent into the club, you could barely talk about him, and now you give us a compromising file? I don’t even talk about professional ethics here, and be sure it’s not even my concern.”

She doesn’t look down. Far from ashamed or even embarrassed. She looks in fact satisfied.

“He met Hannibal, don’t you know it? I mean under the aspect he forges for himself. The Joker aspect.”

Maybe he can be a bit raw. She will not mind.

“Yeah I know. A few tricks that probably worked, with unexpected supernatural help. And yours, Harleen, cause you send him to Hannibal. He’s sensible to gifts you know. Even more when it’s uncommon ones. That’s the kind of thing he could do himself. Lure with people.”

Bitterness in his voice warns her.

“It’s not a trap, it’s a try. I know the context is insane, she says. The only thing I could do was letting Hannibal find out by himself. It’s not only Arthur, its Arkham too.”

Nice that she finally tells his name, he notices as she continues:

“The thing is also that the two of you seem so… unimpressed by what you call the supernatural aspects of all this. I thought it was ignorance, but I talked to Hannibal after his experience of the underground and… I don’t know, I felt like he was not afraid, that he was responsive! And just as I supposed, you are not afraid either.”  
“Well…I lived a part of my life with hallucinations. I see things that no one sees, and I accept that. It’s a different thing for Hannibal, more of a devil wish on his part I would say. This hospital is a thing, yeah. Your patient trying to seduce my husband is also something I had to mention, sorry. I mean, I trust Hannibal, I don’t feel in danger, but I must say that your guy plays a dangerous game, do you know that?”  
“Oh! I know.”

Damn, that is a bit disarming. Did he really sound like an old person, afraid of whatever could happen?

“Simple as that?”  
“Simple as that. And not so simple. You were the best choice. I think you might be able to handle that. Not sure why but...” She’s still smiling.  
“Instinct.” He says a bit ironically.  
“Instinct,” she says in the same tone. “If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work. I would have given him his chance.”

He would say that she has no idea about what kind of chance she gives him.

“And what happens if your experiment fails, Doctor Quinzel?”  
“Arkham will do its part, be sure.”  
“That’s…”  
“Cruel? Unprofessional?”  
“Questionable at least. But maybe that’s what Hannibal called Arkham necessities one time. Well… I remember he talked about Bruce.”

His eyes fell on the animal that dozed since the beginning of their conversation. Funny how this one is unconcerned. So all of this is just a human thing, not a hyena one. He should have known.

“That’s an aspect of me Hannibal didn’t see yet.”  
“The visual one.”  
“Something to say about how I look?”

He laughs.

“I will never allow myself.”  
“Yeah, I like that you’re not into that kind of thing.”  
“So what we are supposed to do now?”  
“First, read the file!”


	6. Chapter 6

So he’s about to read the file. Not a small one. Several boxes, two years in Arkham. A journey through love and hell.

Arthur’s file, the official one at which he already gave a quick look, with consequent additions that Harleen had decided to keep for herself. The amount of this unofficial part tells a lot.  
A thick notebook, titled Diary of Arkham strange phenomenons, also catches his attention but he decides to keep it for later.

And a box of letters and pictures, that Will doesn’t even dare to look at closely for now. Damn. She gives him access to a very private part of her life. He feels like he shouldn’t detain all of this.  
Not that he’s unfamiliar with personal dramas ending in his hands. All the files he had access to through his life were a bit like that. People’s intimacy and lives shattered by terrible events, exposed to more or less sympathetic eyes. It was certainly part of why he hated them. This one is quite different. Among other things because it involves the therapist herself, as a perfect example of how to break the rules.

He begins with Harleen’s work from when she met Arthur. Her slow dive into his mind. It took a long time to gain his trust. And very early, more of her time than what is usually allowed for one patient. It looks at first that he was not the only one in this case. She was a junior, very determined. She had a small group, selected on a few criteria, with whom she wanted results. Mostly young people, and maybe Arthur Fleck as a challenge. With this one, she had to make more sessions because at first she couldn’t obtain any reasonable answer. He clung to his comedian role, sometimes telling the truth, sometimes inventing stories, with a surprising ability to scroll for someone diagnosed like he was. She knew early that she couldn’t count on the previous works of her colleagues. Not that they were incompetents but they had too much to do. A song that his patient knew too well. 

He was taking shelter into his clown persona mostly for distracting himself during useless therapy sessions, maybe paradoxically for not losing his mind completely. He was in Arkham for two years when she arrived, two years during which he became more and more violent, more and more closed on himself, more and more enigmatic, progressively joining what we could call the selected club of the Arkham eminent crazies.

His remarkable capacity to create stories was for a big part of what piqued her curiosity, and she decided to keep tracks of these and their multiple versions. She classified them, always asking for details, accepting that they were moving material, fantasies sometimes just created to provoke, frighten, and even sometimes tenderize. 

Letting Arthur and his counterpart Joker free of their taste for imagination, she was progressively allowed to access to his past as much as he allowed himself the same. She managed to convince him that his brain was not as injured as he thought, that he could remember. She knew she was giving him strength doing this, and that somehow it could be dangerous. When he asked her what this dig in his memories could be useful for, she answered that it could be a favor to her, and that was dangerous too. He would have laughed if she had said that it could help. Notions she thought she would keep for later. 

And one day she had access.

It was about when he started killing people, and she wanted to know when did he found a taste for this, and how this taste grew. She knew she could not obtain a precise answer because there was none. Wandering into the events of his past, that most of the time he refused to discuss, or that he transformed according to his mood, she became however more and more focused on one moment. 

Between the three guys in the subway, his tragic mother’s killing at the hospital, and the spectacular murder of Murray Franklin on TV, there was the assassination of his colleague Randall, in the intimacy of Arthur’s apartment. A murder that possessed so many potential clues.

That he went to his door armed with his mother’s sewing scissors. That he was enraged about everything, horribly alone in the spiral of this unnamable wrath. He probably took these in order to attack potential cops who would have come arresting him. He was certainly not expecting former colleagues and maybe he just wanted to defend himself. Whatever. The choice of this weapon though. Indeed he was sitting at his mother’s vanity when the doorbell rang and it’s as if she had armed him herself. His fate wrapped in so ironic signs. And yes he needed more blood, had maybe hoped for it.

After butchering Randall, after letting Gary go, there’s this moment that obsessed Harleen. He said that passing by the mirror, he fell in love with his own image splattered with blood. There was blood everywhere when the police entered the apartment a few days after, their investigation slowed down by the chaotic events taking place throughout the city. He said that what he felt after this murder was a monstrous, amazing epiphany made of terror and joy at the same time.

That he could finally appreciate this moment in its entirety. That time stretched, and that he could almost see Randall’s body decompose to the bones in front of him. He spent so much time with this blood on his skin that it had time to dry. But no, he didn’t have so much time. Few hours maybe, which however had the taste of years. Freedom in hell, as a perfect paradox. When the blood dried it started to scratch. He realized that the show was still tonight, that he had to go to it, get out of this gruesome and exhilarating contemplation. 

Because all of this was too intense, he would certainly have committed suicide if he had not been called on the Franklyn Murray show. Another funny thing. It kept him alive. He was so deep in his stunned meditation that he could have never come back. Sometimes he was wandering in the apartment, touching everything, trying to make sure of the realness of things, sometimes he stayed motionless on the couch, with the feeling of the blood flowing from him to the fabric, soaking it to its depths.

He finally took a bath.

Crossing the corridor, he ripped the scissors off Randall's skull, not bothering to take a look at the butchery.

He let the water run until the bathtub was full, got rid of his soiled pants and entered the hot water that quickly turned red, tickling his skin. He rested his skull against the tub’s porcelain edge, closing his eyes. Slowly submerging his head, letting the bloody water entering his mouth. Music came to his mind, swirling like a ghostly sound, louder and louder. Underwater he couldn’t hear anything else. He tried to breathe nasty water, couldn’t fully resolve himself to that. 

He resurfaced seeking oxygen. 

The bathroom around came back to him, blurry, pink and green melting in daylight. The dark liquid surrounding him. He let the water run out, reopened the tap; it slowly cleared, turning cold. He still had the scissors in hand. He raised his hand within the reach of his eyes, observing the object at length. They were so sharp. He checked and carefully cleaned them. They shone between his fingers. Clean cold water shimmering around him, in the sunny bathroom. 

The music was sweet, with the seducing tones of a crooner’s voice, singing for him only. He let his eyes run on his body in the tub. His skinny legs, the white skin on the inside of his thighs. Smooth and shiny. He always thought he had beautiful skin. Maybe more when he was younger. He should take more care of himself. And then he missed the blood on this skin. 

Under the water, he let the edge of the scissors run on the milky surface near his groin, letting the tip cling on his skin. He opened them and pressed their blade into his flesh. Nothing first so he tried harder. And then he saw tiny white lips opening themselves inside his leg, growing bigger. Blood came finally, a shy red smoke rising to the surface. Thin delicate filaments waving in the water, in a slow gracious dance. It softens his mind. 

A second pair of lips was added to the first, then a third and a fourth. The same on the other thigh for matching. He felt as if he breathed better. The cold water didn’t turn as red as earlier though, and he still needed more colors. Suddenly he realized that he should get out of the bath if he wanted to be ready for the show. He came out of the water into the light, blood running down between his legs. Lighter, ready to fly.


	7. Chapter 7

Will wakes up dizzy from his reading. He drowned here. Harleen’s narrative is much more than a psychiatrist’s report. She finally had her entry into her patient’s mind; she also lost herself a bit this day. She knew it, so this part is not in the official file. She kept the results for herself, even if it was good ones. From this day, they were able to communicate, but no one knew. Such a crazy choice. She also mentioned one thing after that. Arthur teasing her, saying that he still had the scars if she wanted to see them. 

Will surprises himself dreaming about what would have happened if he had provoked Hannibal this way, early on their first sessions. One or two times, hadn’t he thought about something like that? He certainly did.

Fantasizing about his therapist. When did Arthur get there? When did she get there too?

Slow burn. No specific time for that either, and nevertheless we always search for them desperately. Until we stop in front of something significant. Maybe only into the seekers’ minds, though. He just gave her what she wanted. There was no one to heal, he didn’t want to heal. Not like that. He wanted more intimacy, some real personal stakes. Giving a kind of life to the crazy ghost he had become. Maybe he surrendered a bit.

So Will opens the other box. These letters, pictures, and all that hang into the air between their thin surfaces. He also realizes that he let himself go inside Arthur’s skin, as his empathy always does. He knows that what he read is some part of the truth. One of these moments. This guy offering something about himself because after all, he wanted the attention of this therapist so much interested in his case. So he gave this. How he felt, what he did, a moment that nobody knew. Like she deserved that. Sincerity is a weapon sometimes, as much as lie can be. Sometimes it works even better.

He doesn’t dare to give a close look at the letters still, but can’t help some of their words to reach his mind. This world they created outside, far beyond rules and laws, which belonged only to themselves, just as he did with Hannibal. Damn, how could she knew! They even went to the beach one time. Such a naïve wish for an ordinary life. Like an island, an inaccessible fort. They had a life, and even though a secret one, they had it and could have lived here. They even could have fled. 

What retained them in Arkham, in Gotham, in this sick place where they met? There are some clues about that. Things with astonishing strength, things that they couldn’t fight. Something deeply ingrained in Arthur’s mind, that grew in the time of his detention. This Joker side? Not so simple. Maybe if he had known her at the beginning, just after the events that brought him back to the asylum, maybe at this time, even though he was highly damaged, an escape could have been possible. But he bound with such terrible things once he was there. She did it too.  
It’s always the wrong time, Will says to himself. He knows that too well. He lingers in front of one picture reminding him of Hannibal’s narrative. The crimson velvet dress. But Arthur wears it here. 

He’s like these actresses in old movies, these femmes fatales, a cigarette in his hand. Smiling, with striking melancholia in his eyes. All is done now, I am impossible to reach. God damn it. He should not dive into that. He puts the picture aside, opens the diary about Arkham. But what he finds here is not exactly meant to reassure. He could even say that it’s far more disturbing. He’s good at reading minds, he always was. It was his job.

But now, all he can do is to doubt Harlenn’s sanity. 

It’s like the personal diary of a highly damaged brain. And probably a dangerous one. What strikes him at first is the omnipresence of the plans, just as those which obsessed Hannibal at the very beginning. Complex plans, looking like a sick architecture coming back regularly through pages, and which are never the same. 

With constants though. Conditions to go from one place to another. As if she was taking note of the paths able to lead her to places she wanted to reach. Places renamed after what she saw or lived there, map of an intimate territory. Not as a mind palace, as Hannibal’s, cause it’s shared with frightening events or entities. What she saw over there was terrifying. Was it real persons, constructions of her mind, of Arthur’s mind, of their common entwined imagination? 

Among others, he recognizes the place where Hannibal was brought, this theatre dressing room. There’s even a drawing. But its location looks rather unclear. Fluctuant. It doesn’t make sense. Locations classified according to the difficulty of finding them, with the list of various possibilities for each of them. Also, classified according to their level of dangerousness, and even their age. 

There’s a garden, with its drawings too. A very old place, from the time of the founder of the asylum: the beginning of the last century. How to stabilize the shifting of the stairs and all over here, some kind of witchery. And there are people. He should more exactly call them creatures. Those considered dangerous, those who are less. Cause obviously, they always are. How to neutralize them, and that sometimes in violent ways. The list of the demons living in a very nearby inferno. 

It’s a shock. Figuring Hannibal’s reaction in front of this makes things even more… complex. He probably hadn’t seen all of that yet, but his interest makes so much more sense now. Harleen’s delusions, cause at this moment he cannot call this otherwise, are rooted in Arkham, caused by something that Hannibal saw too, that at least he has guessed.

He will have a lot of questions to ask and he must admit that he’s hooked. This looks like a black bible, dedicated to the art of surviving in hell.

It’s with different eyes that he sees pictures and letters now. Whatever this is true or not, Arkham crushed them in an awful way and they were powerless. And however, Harleen came to him, to them, with the appearance of a balanced person, and gave them all of that. She also said she enjoyed it. What does that really mean? 

Arthur in the crimson dress now looks at him with an even more enigmatic gaze. The eyes of someone who traveled through worlds, and took another one with him? Should he believe that?

He decides to reread everything in detail.


	8. Chapter 8

A few days later.

The hospital is so quiet this evening. His last patient gone, Hannibal takes a moment for himself before heading home, tidying up his files with the manic care that characterizes him. Waiting here the same way that he waited for Will on their first appointments when the latter was late. Since he realizes that, he also decides that he cannot let this day finish like that. He spent it trying to obtain more about the relationship between his patients and the hospital. This place that frightens them all. Hannibal is searching a clue, a path to follow, but none of it appears clearly.  
Several days have passed like this since Harleen had given Will this box about herself and her beloved patient. 

Frustration is looming. The patients’ stories are more than incoherent, but he reports them anyways. They all try to hide things, the cause by being that all those who preceded Hannibal told them to be quiet, and not talking about these things. Its decades of silence that he must fight.

But the worst is that Harleen is gone. Officially she took a few days, but Hannibal doubts seeing her again in the hospital. Her mission is accomplished. He can’t say that he’s not a bit annoyed, and he can’t say that he doesn’t admire the way she did it. Her legacy is a fascinating one, so she deserves his leniency for now. But things must happen or he might get bored. Spending days alone in this decaying hospital is not exactly to his taste. Even the cat has vanished. Could he find his way through Arkham without his small guide? At least he must try. Will has a meeting tonight, something about animal care. He will be late.

He decides to try to reach the hospital’s underground. He got a glimpse at Harleen’s enigmatic diary, as much as it was possible, Will refusing to drop it for even a second. He must make an attempt, and he decides to make it tonight. He goes right to the archives. The guy in charge has just left, letting the place to the silent howls of the thousands of people whose lives are stored here.

The place is huge and messy but it’s not his main problem. Harleen, as well as Arthur, mentioned the archives as a place with passages, possibilities. He smiles a bit at his own quest, its absolute nonsense at a rational level. Searching clues, abnormal details. Something that could lead him to this place he reaches one time. Earlier, he methodically searched for traces of the large room where he met Joker, and obviously he found nothing. And it’s not even worth talking about the theater dressing room. It could be anywhere.

He suddenly has an idea, turns the lights down. Only the dim ones, indicating the emergency exits, illuminate the never-ending series of metal shelves full of boxes. He lets his eyes get used to penumbra. Slowly repeating the path already done several times, trying to see everything. Then he notices the door. He’s sure he already passed here. This is not a hospital door. Its wooden panels are the same as those in family houses, a bit in ancient style. With an egg-shaped porcelain handle. Out of context here.

He approaches, touches it with a careful hand, testing the wood texture he should expect. He lets his palm slide on its surface and go toward the handle. The coldness of the material seems normal as well. He turns it, trying to open the door but it’s impossible. The door is locked. He insists, feeling another wave of frustration reaching him. He tries another time. Then considers the possibility of breaking down the door. He still tries, aware of the ineffectiveness of his attempt, and finally stops, forcing himself to think, slightly rattled by the ability of this place to resist him.

Few seconds pass when suddenly the handle starts to shake on its own as if another person, on the over side, also tried to open the door. Hannibal, somehow hypnotized, stares at the small porcelain button shaken by frantic jolts.

Nothing warned him of someone’s arrival on the other side. No steps, any sound either. Then it’s the entire door that starts to tremble violently as if someone tried to break it down in a mockery of his own attempts. When he tilts his head towards it, he distinguishes a breath gasping stronger and stronger. Door and handle are shaking lesser now. He leans his forehead against the panel, and the other one seems to do the same. His fast breathing goes with small mouth sounds repeated in a hectic way. The gasps grow stronger, nearly exaggerate, giving Hannibal the feeling that we make fun of him.

Whispered in his hear through the wooden panel, a voice says:

“Are you searching for someone Doctor?”

More surprised than he would admit, Hannibal slightly moves his head away from the door. As if he had seen his gesture, the one on the other side continues:

“Don’t fear anything Dear, I know why you are here.”

A raspy voice, tainted by a sardonic tone. A laugh comes too, very different from Arthur’s, particularly displeasing to Hannibal’s ears. He insists:

“You want him, don’t you? You came here for him, am I wrong? And you cannot pass this door poor you, can you guess why? It’s so funny…”  
“Who are you?” Hannibal snaps, his patience put to the test.  
“Who do you think I am, sweet doctor?” He answers, his sentence ending in a muted crazy laugh, the door shaking slowly as if he tried to open it again as if he rubbed himself against it. 

Again he hears his strong breath, the strange mouth sounds, faster and faster.

“Try again, please, try again, make me laugh. Maybe you will succeed, you know. Think, Doctor. Try to remember how to open a door.”

Mechanically, he squeezes the door handle again, tries to turn it another time. The other one sees the gesture, which triggers louder laughs.

“Nice try… But you can do better I’m sure of it. If you really want him. Do you, or is it just a fancy? Poor Arthur… I’m not a nice guy you know, but I’m not sure you are either. What do you want to do to him, tell me please, I’m sure I’m gonna hear funny things…”

Hannibal tries to think, to forget the rude and sassy voice. Did he saw something in Harleen’s diary, about the doors, something that could help?  
Maybe something about passages in general, something he could remember in all what concerns how she drove herself from one place to another, taking control of chaos. The overloaded pages of the diary scroll through his mind methodically. He remembers its schemes in detail, all these strange codes that he tried to translate with Will. Suddenly something about words comes back to him. Very general, but frequently repeated.

Words are useful.

He remembers his first coming, how he guessed that he had to make an answer. It’s the same here. Now the question is about his intends. What he's supposed to say? The truth? What does the one behind the door want to know?  
He makes a decision. Let’s try the ambitious truth:

“I want to sew him back.”

The laugh behind sounds almost victorious and Hannibal smiles too. He knows he’s right. When he tries to turn the handle again, he meets no resistance.  
The door opens. Behind it’s pitch black, and nobody’s there.


	9. Chapter 9

A perfect silence, a perfect darkness.

Hannibal takes a step and decides not to count on his sense of sight. He closes his eyes and starts to feel, letting his other senses register his environment. There’s still ground under his feet; he guesses that he’s in another hallway. He smells only dust and rust, the usual hospital smell fading, so he’s on the good path or at least he hopes it. He walks right ahead and gradually finds his bearings in the dark. The atmosphere is quite familiar.

After a while, he reopens his eyes to check his surroundings. He can’t say how much time he walked before a tiny bit of light reaches him. Very slowly he finds out that he can see again. All is smashed down here. Old cupboards upside down, devastated hospital beds, furniture in pieces. The light seems to come from nowhere, to strangely emanating from the walls. Dark puddles on the floor, old sheets stained with blood and mold, a sewer smell slowly increasing.

He passes by operating rooms which look like they had been deserted in the middle of events, interrupted by a sudden disaster. Moisture invades the place, turning everything into sick greens and grays. Oxide drips on the paints, the formerly white tiles. Another room catches his eye. A sort of collective bathroom, even more repulsive than the previous ones. He senses presences here. He enters, perfectly silent, staying in shadows as much as he can.

He hears wet noises, muted wrestling sounds. Groans. The obscene sound of flesh smashed against flesh. The smell of sex suddenly invades his nostrils. Some of a brutal sort. He stops when he sees them. The scent of blood catches him stronger than thunder, sending sparks to his brain cells; it’s the smell of his prey that he recognizes, struggling with another predator.

Not exactly struggling though. Two bodies merging on the dirty ground, invading each other, pale skin moving in chaotic motions, resisting, fighting, and melting. He approaches like a ghost, gets a better idea of their shapes. The head of one is pressed against the neck of the other. Tousled hair falling other the meat of his partner’s shoulder. He bites him to blood. There’s also this long black ribbon wrapped all over him, sinking into his skin.

Suddenly aware of another presence, the biter raises his head. Hannibal sees a blurry face, very white, with shiny eyes made-up in messy black. There’s red all other his mouth, made of lipstick and his lover’s blood. He looks at the newcomer and slowly grins, a monstrous and disproportioned grin, his breath like a snake hiss, threatening, ending in a lower groan. The black ribbon suddenly flees the body it entwined a moment before, with the speed of something alive. The man slightly tilts his head, in an odd fashion evoking something of a ghoul. He backs up slowly, licking his lips with his tongue in a lascivious way. Showing his reddened teeth. Backs up until he disappears into darkness, swallowed by the dirty shadows.

Hannibal comes closer, watchful, on his guard. The other one is probably still around and could have the impulse to attack him yet he thinks he will not. It’s not a jealous one, more of a player wanting to know how the other part will act. An interesting creature who will plenty deserves a hunt. Later though.

He’s left alone with Arthur’s naked body, motionless on the grubby floor. Probably in shock. His clothes are nowhere to be seen. His skin is covered with bruises, scars and bites. The fresher one between shoulder and neck is still bleeding. Hannibal kneels next to him, puts his hand in his hair, giving him a few strokes while taking his pulse. He’s not in danger, but this room still charged with teeth and cries forces him to hurry. He raises him, takes him in his arms and retreats from the menacing place, thinking that his encounter with the unknown man is only the first.

Once back in a more safe part of the hospital, he finds a small consultation room supplied with drugs and medical equipment. He puts Arthur on a table, goes to find a blanket, what he needs to heal his wound. When he comes back, he stops a moment for staring at the body in front of him, now in full light. He’s like an Egon Schiele painting, the various states of bruising and marks giving his skin a stunning palette of colors. He’s a work of art. His dangerous emaciation giving him the fragile beauty of ikebana. The silky quality of this skin where it’s intact: gorgeous material for painting.

The smells that emanate from the body are strong but not totally unpleasant. They are even unusual. Gunpowder and gasoline mingled with semen and dirt. The first a bit surprising in a hospital, but he supposes they belong to the stygian lover. A curious bouquet that could be perfectly loathsome, that for a second time Arthur’s skin transforms into something almost sweet and ghostly like.

Hannibal leans over him, bringing his face to his belly. And slowly, from just above the hairy part where his penis rests to the spot between his nipples, he runs his tongue on the marked skin.  
Arthur opens his eyes, unfocused. After a while, it looks like he recognizes the one above him.

His voice is a whisper:

“Sorry for not being able to honor your invitation.”

Hannibal realizes that he doesn’t want to leave him at the hospital. Moving him will require precautions but it’s not so complicated. Yet he will need to sedate him.

“Don’t worry about that”. He answers, sticking a needle in his arm.

Arthur’s consciousness fades to black.

With a light sting of regret, he covers him with the blanket, then takes him back in his arms nearly on an impulsion. He sits with his burden on a chair nearby and starts to think. He will wait here for a while, time for the hospital to empty a bit. Arthur’s head falls into his neck, and he pets him like a child. So many trains of thought passing by his brain. Time to choose between one or two he supposes. He lingers on how his unpredictable boy will react, on how the fragrance of the one in his lap influences his choices.

The memory of his taste is still on his tongue, inviting Baudelaire’s Artificial Paradises.

*******************

When Will enters the house this evening, he knows that something is different. They are not alone. He can feel it in the air since the entrance and he has assumptions about the identity of their guest. It’s always strange to wait for a moment and then realizing that it happened. What he feels is quite conflicted. It could have been an ordinary hunt, and it would have meant that they were going to kill someone tonight. They rarely keep their prey in the house for a long time. When Hannibal was alone, some of them survived years under his custody. It’s still possible that they were kept alive a few days, but Will doesn’t like to know that there’s a stranger in the house. And usually, they use the basement.

Hannibal is not in the basement now, clearly. Not in the kitchen either. Will climbs the steps leading to the first floor. Up there he sees light coming from the bathroom. He smiles to himself, but maybe he should not. He walks towards the door, pushes it, leans on the jamb and watches.

Hannibal is giving Arthur a bath. From where he is, Will only sees his head resting on the ledge of their huge bathtub. His eyes are open but he doesn’t seem to react to what is surrounding him. He’s drugged.

Hannibal works in his underwear, his broad back facing him. He lingers on the surgeon gestures, smooth and precise, with something more. Sweetness. He can say that he cares about this prey. A lot. This puzzles him a bit. He knows how they interacted, Hannibal talked about it a lot, it even entered a very personal part of their life. But it’s a different thing seeing it for real.  
He knows he’s here, but it’s only a few moments later that he turns around.  
Such a comedian.

“Good evening Will.”

The look the latter gives to his husband is so Graham-like that Hannibal cannot even regret his impulsive decision. Beautiful upset Will.  
He inclines his head, holding his gaze with a small smile which is a plea for forgiveness as much as it shows his complete delight.

“Toys are not allowed in this part of the house and I overstepped?” He asks almost playfully.  
“Yeah… You know that and you don’t even care. What do you intend to do with him?”  
“For now, ridding him of Arkham’s smell, making him comfortable. He needs some rest. And I must say that I’m curious to see him act in a new environment.”  
“Our environment.”  
“Only if it suits you, Dear Will. You know that you can stop that anytime. Will you?”  
“And deprive you when you have finally found something that interests you to the point of breaking common rules? No… It would be very foolish from my part”. He answers sardonically.

With some flippancy in his attitude, he approaches the bathtub next to which Hannibal is kneeling. He freezes at what he sees.

“Damn, what happened to him?”  
“An enthusiast lover I’m afraid.”  
“Are you kidding me?” He answers, knowing that he’s not. “Is he into masochism or something like that?”  
“More complicated I’m afraid. I found him with this “other one” which I talked to you about, who is also mentioned in Harleen’s diary.”  
“You saw him.”  
“And I can say that he’s more than a delusion.”  
“Did you think of the possibility that you could have joined them into madness?” He asks, provocative.  
“Of course, I have. There’s always a possibility. But trust me when I say that this is much more than collective lunacy.”

Trusting Hannibal… He will always smile at that. And however, yes he trusts him, he thinks while observing his husband getting Arthur out of the tub and lay him on the ground on large bath towels. He begins to dry him with the same delicacy with which he gives him his bath.

Will cannot take his eyes off the martyred body in front of him. All these bruises and bites. The scars, the rope traces, needle traces. Some words in Arthur’s letters come back to him; this man he met over there, whose name is never said. A sort of love-hate relationship with what looks like an even darker version of himself. Will was almost sure that he didn’t exist. Arthur was so ambiguous when he talked about him. Even if it was mentioned that Harleen met him also.

Arthur’s body is a map and Will surprises himself wanting to read it with the same manic interest with which he read her diary.  
His eyes, half-closed, drift on Will’s face, one moment searching, then shifting to unconsciousness. Once carefully dried, Hannibal dresses him with pajamas Will had never seen before, realizing that he bought them to him, probably with over clothes too.

Hannibal looks up to his husband, consulting him before raising Arthur in his arms. A second time. This tells a lot, he knows. Whatever will be Will’s decision, he will obey. Really.  
For now, Will gives him a simple nod. Hannibal says:

“I have another interesting story to share if you want to hear it. But before, we should bring this boy to bed.”


	10. Chapter 10

The bedroom is so quiet when Will opens his eyes. Darkness enfolds him wholly, like some thick tepid velvet. Hannibal should be here but he finds himself alone. He scans the room, recognizes familiar objects, and after a while, realizes the presence of some that he hadn’t seen in years. Maybe he doesn’t pay enough attention to the decor.

Is Hannibal gone with their new guest? Maybe he’s now giving him more bruises and bites, unable to retain his hunger. It would be such a dazzling betrayal.

On a credenza, the little bronze deer is roaring. So Hannibal was able to save this object and brought it back here. Strange that he never realized.

In the stillness of the night, he finally hears a breath and immediately feels reassured not to be alone. Why does he worry so much? This guy is just another toy, and they will get rid of him soon. He turns his head to the side of the bed that should be occupied, but no one’s here. 

He still hears this breath.  
When another time he watches around the room, it’s the huge ravenstag that he discovers at the foot of the bed. It’s been years since he saw it. The animal looks puzzled, about to flee. It looks at something and backs off slowly. Threatens with antlers. Scrapes the bedroom’s carpet with its hooves. 

A head appears at his feet as if the one to which it belongs had come from under the bed.  
A messy head with spiky hair. The ravenstag backs off again, now in the frame of the door. If he disappears, Will will be alone with this man and he doesn’t want that in any way. He tries to talk, to order to the animal to stay. He finds out that he can’t talk. The man walks slowly to the black creature and now Will can see him better. He’s wearing a strange purple suit and his hair his vaguely green.  
It’s not the man who sleeps in one of the guest rooms of their house. No. Will realizes that it’s the one Hannibal told him about a few hours ago. He suddenly feels fear creeping. Something’s very wrong. In fact, he hadn’t been frightened like this for a very long time. The man still walks toward the stag, which gradually gets out of the room. No No No No! 

But once in the hallway, the big animal disappears into the dark. Will is alone with the eerie man, who turns leisurely to him. His face is a mess of white, black and red. Faster than Will would have expected, he’s on all fours on the bed, his tongue lolling out of his mouth like that of a dog.  
Will parts his legs on an impulsion, thinking that bruises and bites of another one will certainly make Hannibal come back. He never imagined being this sort of guy. He’s feeling so ashamed. And it had been such a while since he encountered this type of emotion. 

The man above him smells very badly and this stench arouses him. So different from his beloved husband. It's curiously soothing, violently erotic. He feels the man’s tongue on his neck, on his mouth. It’s cold. Humiliating. He realizes he likes it, tries still to throw the man out off the bed, not so unsatisfied when he sees that he doesn’t succeed. He lets that tongue invade his mouth, and it feels like it’s huge, making its way like this to his throat, practically choking him.

Maybe he’s going to throw up and that would be so embarrassing. He’s even more aroused. He wraps his legs around the other man’s waist, dragging himself against his body with all his strength.  
Why does he react like that?  
Another part of him knows that he could neutralize him easily, open his throat with his teeth for repaying. He’s not so strong although he’s far better built than his delicate lover, the one that Hannibal kidnapped.  
But he likes the situation, he likes it a lot. His husband should come back now and see him like that. He sticks his groin to the man’s, moving underneath him frantically, trying to reach orgasm with rage. He tries to open his mouth wider, to swallow more of the man’s tongue, which feels bigger and bigger. 

It enters his throat deeper, to an abnormal depth. And strangely it's so good. He also feels the gloved hands of the man on his face, in his hair, stroking him gently. His smell engulfing him. It looks like that tongue will go down to his stomach, impale him entirely.  
An uncontrollable fear tanned with lust overwhelms him. He wakes up trying to reject the alien member.

Hannibal stirs a bit next to him. Will is about to say something justifying about his dream, then realizes how silly it would be. Better that he doesn’t have full access to his brains, to how much what he told him last night infused and what results it gave.

He takes a deep breath, trying to forget the phantom feeling of a foreign object in his throat.  
He looks around him, thinking about how the nightmare had subtly changed the surroundings. The night is clear, with an almost full moon. It must be freezing outside.  
Then he remembers the presence of a third person in the house, the one who cracked so suddenly into their lives. 

Hoping not to be noticed, he steps out of the bed, keeping an eye on Hannibal’s sleepy shape. He doesn’t want to be seen. Probably the remnant mood of the nightmare. This shame like the one of a teenager, this dream that made him weaker than he is, like his old self would have been. Dreams.

He silently walks to the hallway, and without being able to repress himself takes the direction of the guest room. He pushes the unlocked door, enters. Hannibal didn’t pull the curtains here either. 

The moonlight bathes the room and its occupant. He comes nearer and starts contemplating Arthur’s face. He looks so casual, almost childish. Long brown lashes on white cheeks. Just a hint of sadness in the curve of his thin lips. Like a too old boy. 

Not the dangerous type, the kind that you would consider yourself lucky to have the opportunity to kill in his sleep.  
It would be so simple, though. Things would continue the way they were before. It would be easy to compartmentalize, and damn Harleen and her wishes. He approaches his fingers to Arthur’s head, together tempted to give death and stroke this so close messy hair. 

How they look fragile when they end up in their hands like that.  
Even the most dangerous of them. But this one is not such a threat. They fought and overcome much worse.  
Hannibal talked about him as a toy, but Will knows that it can have various meanings. By the way, it was about what he was supposed to think. Anyways. A happy fate is still far from guaranteed for their guest. He has the choice, and if he feels endangered, he will kill without any hesitation. Arthur is not exactly an innocent man either. 

The latter sighs in his sleep, as if he knew, and Will reminds himself what Harleen said about his voice, how he’s able to delicately modulate it depending on what he wants to achieve.  
A very sweet, seducing voice. And a partial point of view, obviously.  
But maybe he wants to hear it. Like an echo of their romance. He laughs silently to this; just as silly as his nasty nightmare. With the tip of fingers, he brushes some of the sleepy man’s hair. He’s so much like those we want to protect. A stray. Is it possible that Hannibal took so much from him?

He retreats from the room, deciding to give everyone more time. It’s not excluded either that tomorrow morning he will find his breakfast made with some of the man’s meat. Hannibal’s mind can change quickly.  
He should never get attached too fast.


	11. Chapter 11

The day after, Arthur stays in bed, and Hannibal takes care of him like a child.

Will observes, helps a bit. Arthur doesn’t talk much, still on drugs. The second day after, the effects fade and their guest regains almost full consciousness.

The third morning, he’s with them in their lavish kitchen, sharing their breakfast, mind clear, possibly more than in the past four years, any piece of his body missing. Will is surprised that Hannibal didn’t play the drug and dependency part any longer. So he’s truly curious of the mind he kidnapped. Until now, he thought his interest mainly linked to the fact that somehow, the guy was a part of Arkham, that it was the hospital that fascinated him.

Arthur is sitting here in a white t-shirt and grey pants, like a new friend who spent the night for the first time, a bit nervous or shy because of it. Will thinks about these meals they shared with Harleen not so long ago, and about how much these moments look the same: ordinary ones, between ordinary people. Not so surprising coming from Hannibal, who always cared about bringing civility into his abnormal world.

The breakfast is into Hannibal’s style too, sumptuous as hell, what is a bit ironic considering that their guest doesn’t eat a lot. Which maybe indicates that the consumption of said guest is not excluded either.

Will realizes that maybe he thinks too much when he notices that his coffee has run cold. He takes another one. This morning more than ever, Hannibal in his kitchen is like a wondrous butterfly dancing everywhere, the sun of the grey cold day that begins.  
Sweet smells surround them, the comfort of the house bringing serenity to the minds despite everything.

Arthur never ceases to look around, entirely distracted by the decor. He barely talks, only saying yes and no and thank you. He smiles sheepishly, maybe baffled by the turn of events, maybe still a bit dizzy and in pain.

Having finally finished his coffee, giving up to stare at the scene any longer, Will announces that he must go and check the animals, triggering a reaction that he did not expect.

“You have animals here? Can I see them?”

It’s said with a childish little voice, as if he barely dared to ask.

“Well… Of course, come with me”, Will answers surprised, not even knowing what else he could say.

Consulting a visibly enchanted Hannibal, what he immediately regrets, he asks a bit ironically if they have warm clothes that they could lend to Arthur for going outside.

“I’ll find you that. Finish your toast, please”, he says addressing to his guest.

That finally brings a note of sass on Arthur’s face, who obediently complies.  
Later they get out in the cold morning, Will heading to the farm, Arthur on his heels. The thick grey atmosphere announces snow.

“Are you afraid of dogs?” He asks, approaching the kennel.  
“No…I don’t think so…” Arthur hesitates. “I don’t often deal with animals you know.”  
“Yeah, I suppose so”, he answers neglecting to take more precautions with the man: he opens the kennel’s door, and they are immediately surrounded by a dozen of enthusiasts dogs, hasty to greet them and doing exercise. A Lot of barking surrounds them.

Arthur freezes a bit and after a while lets his hands running on ears and muzzles. Sweet, confidant.

“You have a lot of dogs!” He says tentatively.  
“Yeah. Like all animals you will meet here, they were adopted. Rescued.”  
“That’s nice.”  
“Thanks.”

He deliberately avoids Arthur’s gaze, focusing on what his body is saying about his state of mind. All he can see is that his curiosity looks sincere, and he’s calmer than he expected. Nothing artificial nor composed here either.

“Come on. Let’s go to the barn.”  
“Yeah”

Inside, Will feels himself relax, as always when the smell of hay and animals invade his nose. Most of the dogs precede them; two of them stay with Arthur, who responds to their interest with shy strokes and small exclamations.

Will begins to distribute food for those in here. Goats and sheep are put together, the horses are in individual boxes. Some of the dogs have already run outside, some stay near Will at work. He lets Arthur visit the place on his own, keeping a discreet eye on him. He’s near the horses now. A large head appears out of one the stalls, and to Will’s surprise, the mare doesn’t back off when Arthur raises a hand to caress her. She even looks quite serene.

“This one doesn’t let herself be touched usually. She has been beaten, she’s very suspicious.”  
“So I guess we have something in common,” says Arthur with a muffled voice. “What’s her name?”  
“Grey”  
“Hi, Grey.”

Then he sees Arthur press his forehead against the mare’s one, the latter still not giving signs of anxiety. He gives a closer look at the scene in front of him. The man is at ease, and it seems that he also puts animals at ease. Not a frequent gift.

When he comes close to him to watch goats and sheep, he sees a genuine smile coming on his face. Arthur looks meek, tired, a bit older than he is, certainly not the usual narcissist killer type. Happens sometimes, Will says to himself, trying to ignore the impression. But he can’t help thinking that this guy also reminds him of his old friend Peter Bernardone.

“Can I help you?” He asks, cutting Will in his reverie.  
“Of course, I will show you how to do it.”

It’s not really complicated.  
They work together in silence, surrounded by bleating and enthusiast chewing noises. Arthur brushes goats’ horns, whose heads are practically buried in the hay. He’s got a delicacy in his behavior that it’s difficult not to find endearing. It looks like it’s a very old self that came to the surface today. And it’s even stranger to see how it looks easy for him to convene it.  
Will considers the possibility of a more agreeable behavior from his part.

“You can sit if you want. You look exhausted.”  
“Yeah. Thanks.”

He sits down on a bale of straw, and it seems that it’s Will who is attentively observed now.

“You know” he starts hesitantly, “I’m sorry to have disturbed you like that. I wasn’t expecting this… to find myself in your home today.”  
“Hannibal acts in surprising ways sometimes,” Will says a bit dryly.  
“We can say that…”

Avoiding eyes starts to be difficult now. The unease he encounters here is even more difficult to handle.

“I suppose you weren’t expected to meet me” he begins.  
“No… Does Hannibal often act like that? I mean…”  
“Bringing back patients to his home without asking for their consent?”  
“Yeah?” The small face Arthur makes… Oh God. Does he thinks about something like "disarming"?  
“You caught his interest, was it not the goal?”  
“Well… Maybe?” An even more confused smile appears.  
“Then you have succeeded.”  
“Oh.”

They stay silent a moment. Will is tempted to have a glimpse, to let his empathy dive into this mind. There are so many enigmas into this shy man in front of him, who is so much more than that.  
He knows that he should not let himself be trapped so easily. But does he really try to trap him? It looks dangerously obvious that it might not be the case. So what?

“What are you going to do now that you are here?” He asks to break silence.  
“I don’t know… As you said, I didn’t come on my own decision. I suppose it’s up to Hannibal.”  
“Yeah, that’s for sure…”  
“Have you got an idea of his intentions? Maybe I should leave…”  
“I’m sure he would be very offended if you did so. I have finished now. Maybe we should go back to the house and ask him?”  
“Ok.”

They were about to leave when Arthur speaks again:

“I would like to thank you, Will… For this: letting me come here and see your farm. That was nice of you.”  
“No problem.” He tries a smile. Not sure that he succeeded though.

When they get out, first snowflakes are falling. Arthur looks at them with wonder.

“It’s so peaceful here.”

Afternoon.

Hannibal has lit a fire the chimney. It’s snowing heavily outside. Here In the heart of the big property, they could imagine that they are very far away from civilization. Far from Arkham too. He draws, and Will tries to read. Arthur is napping on a couch, curled into a ball.  
He has shown him the house, prepared them a nice mid-day meal, and played the perfect psychiatrist. Arguing that he could not let his patient in the state he was in a place like Arkham. That he feared for his life, and that he only tried to help. That Arthur is now on his personal care. So easy for him.

The great mad man, the Joker legend, like a little boy, said thank you another time. And Will finds himself in a too-long theatre play.

He waits for the second act, but it’s like intermission drags on. Maybe he should watch another show. Call Harleen for a whiskey or ten, let them together for their tango lesson. That said the tango partner doesn’t seem really up on it today.

Let’s go back to Harleen. He has so many questions to ask. It could be a so interesting whiskey time. He knows that she has disappeared from the hospital, but maybe she has not moved out still. But he should probably hurry.  
Or asking Arthur questions, and observing how he will avoid all of them. Or diving in his mind and finding clues. He can’t bring himself to do that, can’t help thinking that somehow Hannibal went too far and that he must stay on a cautious position.

The diary was already too much of a thing. But he’s certainly wrong. Hannibal didn’t lose his mind. He simply waits for his next move, knowing perfectly that he doesn’t want to move.  
So he’s responsible for his own boredom.

Well. Maybe he has fishing lures to finish.


	12. Chapter 12

Hannibal watches him leave the room. He knows he must have to be patient. He hopes he doesn’t show too much eagerness but hasn’t got any delusion here. Will sees everything. The time he could mislead him is far gone now.

His drawing goes fairly well. Sweet monster’s sleep, messy hair, and long lashes. A not so quiet moment he had to immortalize. The tension surrounding the newcomer, the fascinating moves of their complex feelings. So many things hanging in the air above this sulky head. When Arthur wakes up, he has already put his shadings on the page. He looks at Hannibal with sleepy eyes, puppy eyes.

“Was it a good nap Arthur?”  
“Yeah…”  
“You can take all the time you need. Think of this place like it was yours.”

Arthur clears his throat.

“I have never been to a place like this. I have never been allowed” he says as sadness and humiliation pass on his face like clouds.  
“I know. You are allowed now. You made your way.”  
“Somehow. Your husband doesn’t seem to appreciate me though.”  
“You shouldn’t be so sure of that.”  
“The way he looks at me, talks to me…”  
“Don’t let yourself be impressed. You’re smarter than that.”  
“I’m not a smart person Hannibal.”

He uses his first name, he notes. Fine. He likes the way it sounds with this delicate voice, always on the verge of breaking.

“Joker would never say that.”  
“He’s not here now.”  
“Really?”

Hannibal looks at him, curious, letting him see his amusement. In front of him, Arthur assesses him with something like childish impudence.

“No…”  
“Arthur. I know that somehow you resolved the problem of your split personalities. In a very unique way, I must say. I know that you can control it.”  
“I had a good psychiatrist. But she abandoned me.”  
“Don’t play that part either. I’m here now, and I will not abandon you.”

Hannibal becomes suddenly conscious of how much he wants to sink his claws in this wounded flesh. And it’s like his prey could feel it. This submissive not so submissive attitude.

“That’s nice. But it’s not the same, as you are aware.”  
“Don’t be so impatient.”  
“You are impatient.”  
“See? You read me very well.”

He smiles warmly and contemplates how the man in front of him doesn’t let himself be trapped by this smile. Perceptive. Four years in the company of highly dangerous minds can easily explain it. It’s almost an instinct.

“I can’t read all of your intentions. Only Will can.”  
“Another good point, for a not so smart person.”  
“I had a bad brain injury when I was a kid. You know that. You know a lot about me, don’t you?”

How an overly shy and fragile mind like this learned cruelty and blood in the hardest way, and survived.

“It’s true. A brain injury doesn’t mean that you are less clever than you should. The brain can compensate and sometimes does in astonishing ways. That’s what you did, and it’s entirely up to you.”  
“I went mad, killed people, and ended up confined in Arkham Asylum, not exactly what we could call a success.”  
“You know you are wrong. But you like to play the fool. A strategy with plenty of advantages I guess.”

Arthur’s gaze grows intense, darker. It’s a beautiful thing to watch.

“I amuse you. That’s great. That’s my intent after all. Joker would laugh.”  
“And you don’t. Why should I think that I brought back only Arthur to this place?”  
“If you want the whole pack, you should take a room in Arkham. A lot of them did it. I mean doctors.”

It’s an invitation. Come and play with me at my place, it still has potential. He’s aware that he has a lot to find out in the hospital. Cutting Joker Arthur from these roots was on an impulsion. Maybe the pleasure of catch and release, a thing he learned from his beloved man.

“I am aware. The founder himself was one of those.”  
“Sure. Would you like to meet him?”  
“And how could I do that? I mean…meeting a dead man?”  
“You wanna know how? I could show you.”

Yes. Show me your magic, the beauty of your haunted world, Hannibal thinks. This something between collective projection and parallel universes.

“You know the paths and the words don’t you?” He says allusively, knowing that he will only have cryptic answers.  
“The dead men know. And you learned. Who told you?”  
“Your lovers did.”  
“What do you mean?”  
“You might find answers in Will’s office. He's got a lot of things stored in. You know where it is.”

Arthur’s face is now a pleasant mix of nervousness and curiosity. Joker is not so far after all.

“You want me to snoop into your husband’s office? Why?”  
“Why not? You’re a player, don’t you? You played sweet boy all day, maybe you should try something else.”

How he reacts to a hint of cruelty contains such promises. He would have loved to see him at the beginning. Before Arkham. His fall.

“Are you provoking me?”  
“Am I?”  
“Sure you are. I didn’t play, doctor. I just acted the way I felt.”  
“That’s your best skill.”  
“I…”

He looks a bit annoyed now. Frustrated. Changing bit by bit. It’s just under the surface.

“You want me to play monster as I do in Arkham? That is what interests you? You brought me to your house for a personal show?”  
“How would you feel about that?”  
“I can give you that. Of course. I suppose I’m in debt, cause maybe you saved my life.”  
“I want to show you something Arthur. Come here.”

Arthur watches him a moment. Joker watches him too now. The strange prince of madmen has his complete attention.

“Ok”

He approaches, and Hannibal can see how his way of walking, of moving, is slightly different. It’s nice to see him back.  
When he’s next to him, he hands him his drawing. Eyes open wide stare at his own shape recreated in red chalk.

“That’s me here, you draw me?”  
“Yes. Do you like it?”  
“Yeah, it’s beautiful. Flattering.”  
“In French, this kind of chalk is called sanguine because of its similitude with the color of blood. It’s a pigment used since Renaissance, made from a pearly black mineral called hematite, whose name also means blood. I’m glad you like it. You can keep it if you want. You’re a unique model. I would love to draw you again in the future.”

Arthur looks at him. Hannibal can see that he liked the art history lesson, but he’s not so naive.

“Why do you show me the strings, doctor? You said you thought I was smart…”  
“And you are. I only wanted to pull on this one to see what would happen.”  
“Narcissism. I know. I am that too.”

He makes this small grimace, like maybe he’s not entirely sure. His story is all about how he finally managed to become a good comedian, Hannibal sums.

“Would you keep the drawing still?”

He finally smiles, like the king cat he can be. Can’t deny his pleasure after all.

“Yeah”

**********

Night is back. When Will joined them for dinner, he finds a different atmosphere at his table. A kind of collusion which was not there in the morning. Arthur still in a bashful mood, but with more confidence. A mischievous Hannibal, pushing buttons like a bandmaster.  
Predictable.

He enters the game without any vow for playing it but at least there is wine. God, will he end up like Bedelia du Maurier? And they don’t intend to leave him alone, far from it.  
And a bit less predictable is Hannibal explaining his husband’s work to their guest.  
They are not supposed to talk about themselves, unless an imminent death is coming for who hears the tale. Harleen’s situation was a different one. Though, maybe not so much; rules have a tendency to blur since a few weeks.

Arthur in his present physical condition is far from immune to wine.

After letting him gain a slightly fuzzy state, Hannibal prevents him from drinking too much. Acting as a good doctor who cares about his patient’s capacity of being in control.  
Not that their guest looks like someone with this kind of need. More in the mood of letting the dices roll. A Joker mood, but clearly on a careful tone.

An in-between that Hannibal certainly finds fascinating, Will supposes.  
Later, their guest pretexts on his tiredness to leave the table, soon after dessert. Accusing Hannibal to intend to kill him with food. A nice outing.

**************

They found themselves alone in their living room, finally. Savoring expensive whiskey in companionable silence.

“You drink too much, Dear Will.”  
“You can’t control everything.”  
“True. Come closer, please.”

He gets up from his armchair, and sits on the floor by the fire, on their thick carpet full of arabesques. Inviting him. His beautiful dandy in waistcoats and silky shirt, with his hair slightly disheveled. Just the way he likes him.  
He walks to him, sits between his legs, lets his head go against his neck. Cheek against cheek, looking at the fire crackle in the Carrara marble fireplace.

All through the day he was edgy, now the pressure slows down. At dinner, he felt almost excluded and realizes that it was some irrational fear.  
Fear of losing him, dear God. A truth he must admit.  
Losing him into the windings of a haunted hospital, into the splattered psyche of another crazy, given to them like a poisoned gift.

“Are you still upset after me?”  
“Yeah. Anyways, that’s what you are. Straightforward serial killer’s couple life is not exactly meant for you I guess.”

Hannibal laughs softly. Inhales his sent tainted by worry. He can so easily imagine the subtle nuances of his blood right now. If he’s still good at it, maybe he will have a chance to taste it tonight. He agrees:

“Certainly not. Not sure either that it’s really your thing, am I wrong?”  
“Serial killer couple life? No. I like fishing and taking care of animals, you know. I am a terribly ordinary man.”

You’re dangerous, Hannibal thinks. A beautiful liar. Talented for fishing he must admit.

“Oh, I see. So if neither of us appreciates this, will you forgive me for trying to introduce new cards in our boring lives?”  
“Your card is crazy.”  
“Could it have been different?”  
“No… It’s Will’s turn to laugh now. It’s a nice crazy card, I can give you that. And you will add that we must honor Harleen’s gift, don’t you?”  
“I am so predictable.”  
“Yeah”

He glows. It might be Hannibal’s blood that will be drunk tonight. He’s alright with that too.

“Will, please… Well. I suppose I deserve it.”  
“You make me so happy now.”  
“At least that’s a thing I’m still capable to do.”  
“You old man.”

He senses him making a face.

“Don't go too far, my dear boy !”  
“Ok,” he says playfully. Surrender from his monster is always such a treat.

And now, his husband’s hands slip under his shirt, searching warm skin, owning him softly and firmly.

“Tell me where you currently are with our new card.”

Will ponders about what is best to say.

“Well. It’s not that I couldn’t be attracted. Don’t know what you did to him, but it’s like he knows how to play me, as much as he knows how to play you. The wounded, the fragile guy. Asking me to see the animals. Like you told him to do that. Too much in a way.”  
“I didn’t say or do anything, Will. He chose to behave that way by himself. He can be very perceptive.”  
“And seductive yeah. He seduced you so easily.”  
“Maybe I’m just an old easy man.”  
“You probably are.”

Hannibal says nothing. Will’s insolence is the strange drug he’s addicted to. He kisses his cheek, wondering how he can worship this man so much. He searches his lips. Lets one hand go to his solar plexus, the other diving to his crotch.  
Will continues, refusing to be distracted easily.

“Don’t want to get attached to a future meal.”  
“I often let myself get attached to my meals, back in time. It gives them a very special taste. A unique one. Maybe that is what I want to share with you.”

He stays silent a moment. Considering possibilities. Hannibal always involved his own feelings. His terribly deviant and intricate feelings. The heart of his monstrosity being the fact that he’s definitely not a cold monster. There is so much kind of food in his regime. He eats everything, from pigs to gods.

“Did you endure pain, consuming these type of preys? What sort of attachment was it?”  
“Not a fake one. I would never do that. And yes sometimes I endured pain. Never regret. You know me.”  
“The taste deserved the pain? The loss?”  
“Always”  
“Damn. Hannibal…”  
“Yes?”  
“Do you still consider eating me, one day?”  
“I could never totally exclude this possibility my love. It would be something very definitive though. Like eating myself. Maybe that is what I should do. Eating a part of myself melted with a part of you. I’m sure it would be such a divine experiment. Would you join me on this day?”  
“Oh. I must reflect on that. Like the wise ordinary man I am. You talk about so terrifying things sometimes. It’s like… Just the idea is... Dear God! I suppose that yes, it could be something totally unique. But please forget this tonight. Touch me Hannibal. Your touch is wiser than your words sometimes.”


	13. Chapter 13

5 AM

It’s not a nightmare that wakes him up this time. More of a feeling. Something happens in the house and this time he’s perfectly awake. He’s slipping out of the bed in an almost perfect replication of the previous night. Not awaking Hannibal, or merely maintaining the illusion of his supposed sleep. Maybe it will become a habit. He's going to pee because that’s what he’s supposed to do.

He’s on the lookout. Coming out of the bathroom, he’s got the impulse to go to the ground floor. There is some light in his office, and he has the sudden certainty of who, and why. Fuck. Hannibal. Couldn’t help himself to push.

He opens the door which was ajar. Arthur shows him his back, and scattered around him there are the boxes that Harleen had entrusted to Will. Very personal stuff. Will cannot repress some empathic pain at the idea of what it must be to find yourself in this kind of situation. And he let this happen. Maybe he should really eat Hannibal’s meat mixed with his own.

He let his eyes run on Arthur’s naked back. It’s like his spine is about to pierce his skin. There is this strangely misplaced shoulder’s bone, looking like the stump of an angel’s wing. And still, the bruises and the bites which catch Will’s eyes with a disturbing force. All these devilish signs that would have made him condemn to be burned if he was born during witch hunt times. Maybe his fate is not so different.

Then Arthur realizes that there is another person in the room, and turns to the newcomer. There is resignation in his eyes, that of those who know themselves marked by suffering. But this expression disappears, fading for anger because of his personal life exposed to foreign eyes this way, and anger at those who did this. He stays silent and Will doesn’t dare to talk first. The gentle boy has disappeared, and the words are spit at his face:

“What are you?”

What can he say? Maybe it’s a bit early for the entire truth.

“What are you doing in my office Arthur?”

He asks the question calmly, perfectly knowing the answer. Arthur hasn’t any need to talk. Wrath covering slowly his submissive features, like dark clouds in a too hot summer sky. And yeah it’s beautiful to watch. But he must also make an answer, say something to him.

“Harleen… gave me these boxes. I didn’t ask for them. Neither Hannibal.”

Arthur’s face goes to irony. Mockery. The clown face is rising on his skin, and Will realizes that he was crying when he was alone. Wet cheeks.

“I’m not the only one of your collection, it seems. Although I can say that my file is the most documented here. I suppose I should be grateful. Am I your favorite thanks to her?”

It’s mostly sarcastic. And though, Will could swear that the boy inside asked the question sincerely. The crazy side is the protector of this one. Now that he can’t avoid these eyes, he sees it clearly. The boy came to him, and he rejected him. His story repeating itself endlessly.

“I worked for the FBI. Hannibal thought that these patients' files could interest me.”  
“How sweet of him. How well he takes care of you. And you know, I’m sure that sometimes you don’t deserve it.”

He closes his eyes because what he hears sounds so true, and what he sees generates too much guilt. This kind of sadism is definitely not for him.

“Yeah… You’re right Arthur” he concedes, reopening his eyes, deciding to confront himself to this too piercing gaze. He remembers what is written in the pages scattered on the floor. The mimicking thing, this part of Arthur-Joker’s abilities. In some ways, the man in front of him reads him as well as he does.

“You know everything. Don’t fucking call me Arthur now. Don’t play me like Hannibal. Show me the real you, Mister Graham-Lecter.”

Other things come back to his mind. Joker escaping handcuffs in mysterious ways. Hiding razorblades in his mouth. The defenseless fool becoming suddenly dangerous, and always unexpected. He’d better be wary.

Arthur walks towards him, and it’s like his eyes are eating him.

“You wanted a wicked plaything, aren’t you? You’ve won it, congratulations. What are you going to do with your prize now?”

It’s a strong hold he has on him. Eyes shining like jewels because of tears. He wants him to dive, he wants him to see. To do his job.

“Hannibal wanted that.”  
“And you didn’t? Don’t lie to yourself darling Will. You are like him and you know it. I still don’t know what the two of you exactly are, but certainly not an ordinary psychiatrist and his beloved husband.”  
“No”  
“At least you’re sincere.”

It seems that his ire has a bit diminished. Joker is watching him, searching what kind of monster he is. Too close to his personal space. Stunning how meek Arthur has disappeared in favor of a blatantly powerful creature. Not that he wasn’t aware.  
Will doesn’t really want to move. The monster in him wants the other one to approach. He can’t help that. Curiosity. Maybe he wants to let himself be touched. Even wounded, who knows. He remembers his dream. Strange, paradoxical desires.

The man’s eyes reminding him of stained glasses. Those of this unholy church named Arkham? Could he survive out of the Asylum? Could it be possible to separate the two of them? That was also Hannibal’s question, Will wonders as he lets the man come dangerously close.

Suddenly, a flickering shadow between them, and Hannibal is here, wrapping his arms around Joker’s, immobilizing him into an iron grip. Will knows the strength of it.  
Did Hannibal think that he was in danger? No. It’s more of an admonition. Or maybe just his tactile tendency, he realizes when Hannibal leans his head in the men's neck, smelling his rage. Will would have rolled his eyes in other circumstances. Maybe he does it a bit.

Joker-Arthur let himself be captured. During his four years in Arkham, he learned how to fight and do harm, but he still doesn’t know Hannibal too well.

“What are you?” He repeats in a deeper voice as he tries to extricate himself. Like a constrictor, Hannibal’s grasp tightens. Joker shows his teeth as new tears cross his cheeks.  
“Calm down Arthur,” says Hannibal’s voice to his skin.  
“I’m not…”  
“Please” he insists as he runs his lips against his neck and shoulder, as he squeezes him even stronger.  
“You know about straitjackets, don’t you…? The two of you. What it does to me. You know everything about me.”

More tears. His gaze piercing Will’s another time. Asking for empathy, smelling it on him like hounds smell blood. Straitjackets yes, Will muses. How it calms him. Like a powerful hug.

“We do, simply answers Hannibal.” And when he releases him, Will sees the arc of the man’s arm coming to him with something white and shiny in his hand.

Immediately he has the reflex to move his face back and catch the attacker’s wrist. He squeezes it firmly until the tiny knife falls on the ground. It was one of his. He looks at Hannibal, raising his eyebrows. Really, didn’t he see it coming? Did his husband try to wound him per person, returning to an old habit he thought forgotten?

Hannibal tilts his head, a slight smile on his face, appreciative. No. The fact is that he was taken by surprise. Right away, his arms are catching Joker again. This time it will bruise.

“Perfect” the latter whispers, enjoying the painful embrace.

In his beautiful eyes, Will sees lust mingled with playfulness, mingled with despair. Tears and pain turned into comedy. He sees all of him because he doesn’t care. His nakedness is a weapon. And Hannibal doesn’t snap his neck as he should. Will understands better now.

**********

Later some explanations come.

As close as they can to the truth, for what they might call a first step. But under polite words, they realize that their guest is more or less aware. He’s in Arkham for too long, he’s familiar with fellow psychopaths and with those who hunt them.  
He knows that often these frontiers can blur. It’s more complicated to explain Harleen’s gesture. Did she want to get rid of him in a definitive manner or did she think she had found people able to understand and take care of him? Arthur, returned from surprise and wrath, doesn’t find the two possibilities so paradoxical. Neither of them does.  
Maybe they found common ground.

When Arthur asks if he’s their prisoner, they say no. When he asks if he will be punished for attacking Will, he accepts their mutual gazes and ambiguous answers. Fair-play enough. Neither of them changes their attitudes towards him, and as much as he appreciates, he knows what it means. They are unimpressed, they are powerful. And yes they could have a mutual taste for each other, whichever way all this will end. She chooses well.

As they talk, Arthur’s eyes follow Will’s gestures, playing with the little knife he stole earlier. Their eyes meet.

“I’m sorry Will,” he says, his expression difficult to read.  
“Don’t, please.”  
“It’s a strange feeling discovering your all life in boxes, in some strangers’ house. Even in such a beautiful one like yours” he specifies. “I should be used to be exposed like that, I know.” He pauses and then continues:  
“Will… I would like to show you something. Would you come with me into town as soon as it will be possible?”

Will looks at him attentively. The sugary voice is back, as well as the sweet boy’s hesitant demeanor. This boy he was so reluctant to trust. Maybe he owes him that. He doesn’t care about his recent attack. The man he became would have done exactly the same in his situation.

“Well… I suppose we could do that…. Do you intend to deliver me to your acquaintances in town?” He asks a bit ironically, and Arthur’s smile answers so nicely to this. He realizes he already made the step too far that he didn’t intend to make. Collusion.  
“Oh yeah, I could do that. Thanks for reminding me of the possibility.”

It's Hannibal's turn to raise his eyebrows. Will can tell that he likes the scenario.

Oh, he would love to go and save his endangered princess from Gotham’s villains. And maybe before he would have waited a bit to see how she would have beautifully struggled. Or he would have let her escape enemies by herself, enjoying her strength and cleverness. Ready for healing her wounds and enjoying it.

It’s too late for going back to bed so he proposes some breakfast. Arthur looks at him as if he had talked about torture, and Will can’t help himself to find the thing quite funny.


	14. Chapter 14

Gotham City on a wintery afternoon.

The snow is turning grey and dirty on the city’s ground. Nothing stays untouched here, Will tells himself. Everything seems intended to turn into trash in this town.  
Next to him, there is Arthur, observing the city as well, nearly as if he was rediscovering it.  
He doesn’t come to this district too often he explains. The part where he grew up. Too many memories here. The thought that he wanted to see it lingers on Will. It could not have any sense, and it could have one. Does it mean he has reached a significant point? Accepted Harleen’s choice? Accepted… them? He wonders, realizing that this question implies that he should have considered possibilities too.

In the past, trying to include a third person to he and Hannibal never ended well for the person involved. He had firmly resigned himself to the fact that their relationship was too intense to make room for someone else. And if he reconsiders the possibility, would it be this man that they would choose? It doesn’t make much sense. But if he dares thinking about it, he’s not sure that he could find anyone that could possibly fit. So?

Arthur is wearing one of Will’s expensive coats.  
He’s practically sure that the guy has never possessed such luxurious clothes in his life. Well, maybe he has stolen this kind of thing; maybe his admirers have done that for him. That said he doesn’t seem to care a lot about that. He became a symbol in the town, and he handled it with an authentic thirst for recognition as much as a perfect indifference for the profits he could have made with that. Able to escape Arkham whenever he wants but always going back to the hospital as if it was his home, able to become the legendary evil Gotham wanted as much as leaving this to all of these doubles swarming in the city. A ghost.

Will asks himself if maybe the man could be recognized, remembers that he’s mostly known under makeup.  
The tired brown man in a pricey wool mantel is an anonymous figure walking down the streets as everyone does.  
He looks fragile as a bird, half-awakened from a dream which would have devoured all his energy. Now that Will has allowed himself to see him, he can’t take his eyes off him anymore. When Hannibal will be bored of his new toy, he knows that maybe he will suffer. Shit.  
Better to talk than thinking too much.

“What did you want to show me?”  
“My past.”

They are in front of an old abandoned building. Arthur lights the fourth cigarette from the pack he bought only a few minutes earlier with Will’s money. Maybe he should not have indulged this bad habit, only for the reason that it makes him want to smoke as well. Above the locked entrance door, an old painted sign half-erased says Ha-Ha’s.  
Will remembers it.

The place where Arthur used to work before everything begins. The man contemplates the facade one moment before dropping his cigarette, then starts turning around the building. Behind there is a small courtyard with walls covered in graffiti. A back entrance, whose door‘s ajar. The place has probably been visited many times. Will wonders if Arthur already came back here. Inside, a narrow staircase cluttered with soil leads them upstairs.

Arthur guides him among the devastated place, to a larger room, lit by a series of big windows whose glasses are broken, letting cold air and Gotham’s gray sky in.  
On one side, old metal lockers on which rust alternates with old blue paint and obscene drawings. On the other, a broken sink lies on the ground. In front, between the windows, an old mirror surrounded by light bulbs, that almost survived destruction. Hanged above, a small sign in a cushion’s shape saying “You look MAH-VE-LOUS!” left here for all these years.  
A figure of loneliness.

There is this bench, where Arthur sits, and Will knows that he already sat here a thousand times years ago. The man is silent for a while, fixing the lockers with a sort of fascination.

“That’s where everything begins,” he says. Slowly his gaze turns away and goes towards Will.  
“The guy who gave you the gun.”

He nods, sighs.

“All of this is so far away.”  
“But you wanted to show me.”

Their eyes meet. Will doesn’t need to avoid them anymore.

“Yeah”

Will dives.  
He’s inside his mind, visiting his past, the frightening and sad memories encrusted in those walls, all that came after. He hears the noises of the streets outside, coming from another era, the permanent fear and angst inside Arthur’s guts at this time.  
He can feel how much he’s different now, how nevertheless it’s the same man. All these things reason finds so hard to conceive, which are only logical to the cells.  
How he gave birth to the creature that was growing in his insides, how it had to happen. A creature made by sad days like this or too many sunny ones, when as a child he was locked in the sweltering city, hoping for a miracle, knowing deep down that nothing will happen, already building fantasies.

Will Graham, skilled investigator with empathy gift, knows this kind of story by heart. He had made them his own despite himself so often. Now he avoids them since he decided to let down what people call goodness for the love of a cannibal killer. It’s been a long time. He let himself drift among life events of another one.  
Everything he read about Arthur, combined with his abilities, reaches him abruptly; like he could grab all his life in his hands and see all its details. And he can say how Arthur and Joker are delighted by this degree of attention. No one does this like him. It’s intimate, beautiful and soft, doesn’t need any words.

He sees Arkham and its twisted mysteries, resigns himself to admit that it’s not only the craziness of a cursed couple. A couple who tried many times to escape, but it’s like Arthur and his creature were linked to the asylum by flesh and blood since the beginning, a bond impossible to break. Arthur can’t really live a normal life. He was never able. He’s the most famous of Arkham’s sons, and this kind of mother never let her children go free.  
When this idea, deeply ingrained in his brain reaches Will, it appears to him what could be his and Hannibal’s part here. Cut the monstrous umbilical cord, something only another monster could have the strength to do. He doesn’t know if he’s ready for that. If he wants that.

There’s some gold in Arthur’s eyes and this gold drives him on a beach. To the secret part of the file, the box of loving memories, the box that he should never have possessed. But that was done, and now he’s with him on the seashore. They still have their eyes locked, and it’s not cold anymore around them. It’s the evening, they are alone, it’s orange and golden and pink. Arthur smiles at him in a quite intense way.

Then Will realizes that he’s inside Harleen’s skin. It’s a quiet moment, where they were able to put craziness aside. For one day they forgot the wounds inflicted by the world, those inflicted on each over. Arthur called it an Alex day, referring to a rare happy souvenir of his childhood. He smiles at her, like the happy little boy he never had the opportunity to be.  
He laughs like everyone does, his hands playing with sand, a simple man building the usual ephemeral castles with his girlfriend. He’s wearing shorts and even a goddamn flower shirt, open on his fragile chest. She loves it and she doesn’t want to come back. Never, she says to him.

And suddenly there is fear and pain and cruelty in his eyes, cause he believes he will never be able to leave Arkham. He killed his adopted mother, and he thought it would be enough. But he had to kill and kill again and still he does. This is his legacy.

She’s not afraid of that but knows deep down that she doesn’t want a life made of corpses. With all her strength she tries but there are these things she can’t fight. But this day it’s ok, she will still be his accomplice for a while, and the smile on his face is back; that’s how they work together.  
She comes to him, put her hands on his face, and kisses him. The monster and the fragile boy together. He has the taste of salt and faded happiness.

When Will comes back to himself when his lips separate from Arthur’s when he looks around him trying to remember present, he realizes that something is different. It’s not even the little smile a bit satisfied on the other man’s face, it’s not that they kissed each over. It takes him a moment to acknowledge it.

The light is different. The electrics bulbs around the mirror are on and the window glasses are no longer broken. The temperature has risen, it’s no longer cold in the room ever.  
When Arthur moves back, when he takes Will’s hands in his own, removing them from his face, he only wears a beige shirt and his hair is slightly different. He kisses Will’s knuckles with something close to tenderness and gets up. Will follows him with eyes as he settles in an old chair that was not there a moment ago, in front of the illuminated mirror.

Will knows that this delusion about objects and atmosphere surrounding them is not coming from his part. He knows how his empathy works, and what happens here is different. Arthur is real, but he’s probably the only element that is, he tells himself as he understands he’s experimenting something very close to what happened to Hannibal in Arkham. Except that they are not in the right place.

At the same time he has proof of the veracity of the phenomenon, he learns that it can possibly happen elsewhere.  
Arthur, even if he doesn’t talk, is clearly aware of what happens. He catches Will’s gaze through the mirror again, maintaining connection this way. As he remembers what happened between them, embarrassment catches the latter a bit. A complex knot of emotions reaches him. All he can do is spying on each of Arthurs’ gestures. In front of him, the small shelf with fringes beneath the mirror is covered again with paints and brushes, like it was in the past.

Arthur takes a brush in his hand and dips it in one of the pots. He brings it to his face and starts spreading white on his cheeks. Smiles at Will through the glass. He looks confidant, quiet. The make-up ritual is his familiar thing, every motion echoes in his witness’ mind with peaceful harmony.  
Will gets up from the bench and approaches him.

In the reflection, there are other people moving in the room. Arthur’s colleagues Will guesses. He’s still visiting his past. It’s further back before everything began. The scene is a daily one. Tiredness on men’s faces weighed down by every day’s concerns. So serious in their clowns' outfits. The sounds of the city outside reach the visitor’s ears, as the sound of the radio in the room. Arthur’s eyes are glowing in the mirror. He’s now applying the blue triangles above and below them.

Will tastes the surreal atmosphere. Quite different from his own imaginary creations, but saying how would be hard to explain. He feels another mind working with his own, another place that is not only in his head. How should he call that? A melt between his psyche and Arthur’s, or even Arkham’s?

It’s strange and yet surprisingly normal. The waves of his companion’s thoughts, from present and from the past. Angst, despair, wrath, love. Their changing shapes during the four years in the Asylum. How he became the great player in Gotham’s minds. There are so few mysteries into the man, except those people wanted here.  
Now he spreads the red on and around his mouth, and it’s like a huge wound on his face, bright blood, and glowing pain, the first thing everyone can see.  
A smiling wound.

“I have a rendezvous soon, dear Will. Will you allow me to go?” He asks softly.  
“If it’s the one who almost beat you to death, maybe I should interfere. But I’m not Hannibal. You can do everything you want.”

They look at each other a moment more. Arthur smiles bitterly to him and says:

“I can reassure you that it’s not about him tonight.”

Will hesitates. But somehow the intimacy of memories and feelings they shared allows it a bit.

“I must ask you something.”  
“Yeah?”  
“Will you be mad at Harleen?”

The painted face is more complex to read. He looks younger like that. Seductive and unreal. An enigma.

“She became your friend and you’re afraid for her don’t you?”

Will nods. The clown smiles at him and drops his eyes. He stares at his own reflection now.

“What do you think he could do to her?” He says pointing out the one into the mirror.  
“Killing her for treason? For throwing away his secrets, abandoning them to foreign eyes?” Will answers for him.  
“Yeah, it’s something he could do.”

The man with make-up takes the measure of his double in front of him. Leans forward as if to observe him better.

“Will Graham knows what kind of monster you are. Beware.”

It’s not the first time he sees him use this kind of tricks, but it feels different now.  
Familiar and melancholic. He’s so close to him. He could put his hand on his shoulder, in his curly brown hair. He can see the green nuances now, as if they had appeared gradually, without him knowing. He could wrap one of these locks around his finger, and feel its sweetness. Joker looks up at him again trough the mirror.

Then he gets up and they are face to face, in each over’s space. He smiles softly, intimately. Half-closes his eyes, a bit theatrically, and Will can see the lashes tainted with white around his green eyes. Joker puts a light kiss on his cheek.

“Thanks for your hospitality. I come back soon.”

Will watches him move away and disappear like in a dream. The other men in the room have vanished too. The windows panes are broken again, letting the winter air creeping inside.


	15. Chapter 15

For a while Will stays still, taking the measure of what just happened. He’s got the weird feeling he heard some words he cannot remember, which went too deep into his subconscious. When he manages to move, he realizes that it was a mistake to have let Arthur go. All he saw could have been done for this purpose: distracting him, and be able to escape.  
Maybe he was their prisoner after all. With his absence, it becomes possible that he may have conceived a feeling of ownership.

His second thoughts go to the where. Where Arthur could have fled? And he doesn’t like what comes back to his mind. Harleen of course. The possibility that he could have gone to her for some explanation or revenge cannot be excluded. His ambiguous words. He feels like he had been thrown back to reality. No matter the sweetness of what they shared, Arthur is still a killer that his ex-girlfriend just sent in the arms of people even worse than him. The idea that he could pay her a visit for that is… quite obvious.

He must hurry. He hopes she has already disappeared, but he cannot be sure. He leaves the disused building in haste, without looking behind him. He will process with that later. Outside an icy wind hits him like a whip. He remembers the place Harleen inhabits, hopes he will be able to find it quickly. Not so far on foot. Things hit him as he walks, fuzzy memories of her tiny apartment coming back to his mind.  
How she can live in such a place while being a psychiatrist. He is aware that all of those cannot have Hannibal’s standards, that she is young, but still. It’s like she never thought or had any time to think about leaving her student apartment.

He finds out without too many difficulties.

It’s right above a modest Chinese restaurant. She’s on the first floor. He watches its neon lights that must illuminate the interior all night. He was so drunk he didn’t even notice it when he came. Next to the restaurant is the front door leading to a narrow, poorly maintained corridor. The door is wide open, which worries him a bit. He enters.

When he arrives at her door he hears music inside. It’s quiet. He knocks. The owner opens quickly, and Will cannot repress a sigh of relief when he sees her face behind the chain. So Joker didn’t come yet to take revenge. She smiles and he finds himself so relieved. But suddenly he doesn’t know what to say.

“Hi Will. I didn’t expect a visit” she begins, waiting for an explanation. It takes him out of his thoughts. He tries a smile.  
“Sorry not have been able to warn you. Can we have a talk?”

Hesitation comes to her face, and then a slightly mischievous smile. She’s not alone, he guesses.

“Yes of course. I have someone to introduce to you.”

She opens the door. There is another woman on the couch in the small living room, crowded with boxes and clutter. It doesn’t take long for him to recognize her. She’s the one who sang in the club the first night he spent with Harleen.  
She watches him enter with attentive brown eyes, a bit suspicious. Will wonders what Harleen could have said about her past, about the monsters that might lurk in her life.  
She says hello with a nod, keeping her eyes on the newcomer. Not sure if she should smile or not. He didn’t expect another person here, came on an impulsion. Now he realizes that he could have brought danger here with his own presence. These two clearly don’t want killers in their life anymore. He feels like a threat. She stands.

“Hi. I’m Dinah” she says approaching him.  
“Will. Sorry to disturb. I…”

Harleen coming between them with a half awkward half impish grin is what softens her face.

“I can go” Dinah adds addressing to her. As if she knew too well, as if she knew who he is. Did Harleen describe him? Talked to her about what she tried to do?

The two women look at each other with concern, a bit of irony, maybe the resigned feeling that they can’t escape this moment. Then he sees one of them make up her mind. While Harleen hesitates, Dinah takes a decision.

“That’s ok Harleen. I will leave the two of you alone. I don’t need to know too much about this shit.”

The latter nods with something that looks like gratefulness.  
Dinah’s quizzical gaze lingers on him.

“Nice to meet you, Will. Maybe I should even say thank you for your help…”

She finally smiles, in an allusive way. But she’s maintaining in her tone a distance reminding that she’s not naive. And that she’s definitely on Harleen’s side.

“I'm so confused, Dinah,” he says another time.

She leaves the place with a silent plea in the eyes, after a peck on Harleen’s lips.

When they find themselves alone, they look at each other silently for a while. None of them know where to begin. Harleen breaks the silence first.

“We are about to leave the city. Feel like you were in a hurry coming here; tell me what the matter is.”

He sighs.

“I didn’t want to show up like this. Your ex-boyfriend found your boxes in my office. And I let him go. I was afraid he could come here and...”

She winces.

“Damn. So he went to your house?”

Will doesn’t resist the temptation of a slightly biased narrative to begin. Well… He doesn’t actually lie.

“He also tried to kill me.”

She’s not so alarmed. She seems to smell the trick.

“Tell me how it happened. Wait. Do you want something to drink?”  
“Yeah, thanks.”  
“I have cheap whiskey.”  
“That will be perfect.”  
“You will tell me everything?”

He nods. Sounds like a good deal.

“If you do the same.”  
“Ok”

She looks at her feet a moment, then goes searching for their drink, and it’s only when she comes back with a bottle and some glasses that she looks at him in the eyes.

“I suppose you read the journals.”  
I did.”  
“And I suppose you thought first that I was as crazy as him.”  
“Yeah.”  
“But something changed?”

He nods another time and asks:

“Were you aware that the phenomenon could happen outside of Arkham?”

She looks a bit surprised.

“Yeah? I guess so... Tell me.”  
“Well… I suppose that I must start at the beginning.”  
“For sure,” she says encouraging him.

Her face is all inducement now. He can read how much she wants to know. A curiosity that matches his. She’s far from innocence. And she certainly wants her things well done.  
She jumps on her old couch and beckons him to sit next to her. That’s the moment he notices Bruce, lying in a corner of the room. His eyes on him.  
She is turned towards him, one elbow on the back of the sofa, her feet folded under her buttocks, waiting. He’s sitting a bit stiff, his hands between his legs. One moment they study their mutual postures and laugh.

“Ok,” he says, swallowing a whiskey sip, changing for a more casual position, partly imitating hers. “Let’s go. First thing is that Hannibal brought back Arthur to our place, after having found him with one of his lovers, who left him badly damaged.”

She looks at him almost too intensely. Her expression hard to read.

“He left him to Hannibal. The other one. Did that.”  
“Yes”

In turn, he examines her the same piercing way.

“Wow” is all she firstly answers.

He raises his eyebrows.

“Really? And… This implies you know without any hesitation about who I’m talking about. The same… guy with no name… you mentioned in your diary?”

She knows she must develop a bit.

“Yeah. He hasn’t got any name, and that is a signifying part of who he is. If there is a real ”who” obviously. Bit complicated. Maybe we should keep things simple. What I want to say is that he usually doesn’t let easily what he considers his property to someone else.”  
“A rival? Is it why you are leaving?”  
“Ok. Take it as you want. The way I would define him, is that he’s a part of Arthur and also a part of Arkham, who was there before him. In the asylum I mean, and that Arthur met here. He’s part of him as much as he is another person, or I should say… entity? I know it's strange. But in the case that you finally saw things, maybe...”

It’s like she waits for his assent. He gives it to her in a light smile.

“Could he… What kind of power this …entity… has? Could he… visit someone in a dream, for example?” He asks carefully.

It’s her turn to raise her eyebrows. Her small sheepish face is back.

“Oh. I see. Yeah. He can definitely do that.”

He holds her gaze firmly.

“So maybe I should consider myself assaulted by a half ghostly creature whose fiancé was stolen by Hannibal, the said creature having let him go too easily for mysterious reasons…”

She’s silent a moment, tasting the ironic summary with what looks like very dark humor. But she decides to keep it serious.

“Playful reasons. And for that I am sure. Sorry for what he has done to you, but… may I say that it could have been…worse? Looks like it was all… psychological? You would not act the way you do. In another case.”  
“I forgot I talk to a good psychiatrist.”  
“Well…”  
“Only psychological” is not exactly what I would call a good diagnosis, Doctor.”

She doesn’t let herself be rattled by sarcasm. Going on and trying to explain as clearly as she can. He can see that.

“Certainly not. We understand each other. So Hannibal brought Arthur back to your home, and the other one let him because he probably wanted to play it that way. Ok. How Hannibal managed to do that?” She asks wanting to know what comes next.  
“He’s smarter than you imagine with this… kinds of things. But maybe I’m not teaching you a lot, Harleen. At this stage, my question is no more why but how? How you knew that maybe I and Hannibal could be part of the very few people who could handle this kind of situation without… Going mad? Being killed?”

She grins like a teasing girl who knows she may have gone a bit too far. It also demonstrates her satisfaction while hearing what just came. That they might be ok with that.

“If I say the real answer, will you accept it?”  
“It worth a try.”  
“Arkham told me.”  
“What?”  
“See, you don’t believe it.”  
“Ok…ok. Let’s say that I believe. What Arkham told you exactly?”  
“Can I say… everything?”  
“Everything.”

Their eyes are locked with such strength that whatever would have passed between would have been turned to ashes. After a good sip and a while he speaks again:

“Is it possible that Arthur and the other one could know… everything… as well?”  
“Yeah… That’s possible…” she answers slowly, cautious. “Not by me” she adds quickly.  
“ You must tell me more.”  
“People in Arkham. I mean. These entities” she begins. “Some of them are kind of… clairvoyant, do you see?”  
“These entities. You talk about them in the journal. Seems to be numerous. You mean one of them has this power?”

All of this is about faith he decides. Abnormal rules, but rules anyways.

“It’s more of… Damn. Voices. If you know how to do it, you can interact. But yeah. It’s kind of specific. Some can give this type of… information. Oh God, I know how it sounds.”

It’s her turn to take a sip. Waiting to see if he will follow the path.

“That’s ok Harleen. I believe you. At least I try. Another thing. Your journal is full of directions indications. You tried to reach places, specific places in the hospital, where these creatures hide. Why? What came first? The searching for appropriate people for rescuing your protégé was not the only reason I guess.”

He must know more about who she is. About how these new rules work. What makes Arkham so fascinating for other eyes?

“Curiosity? Knowing? Power? What would have you done in my situation?” She drops, obviously vague.  
“Well… Fleeing? Looks like something very very dangerous for the mind.”  
“It causes damages obviously. That’s why I’m fleeing now. But someone like Hannibal would certainly understand.”  
“That’s a fact. Nice catch, I must admit. I mean, Hannibal. Congrats.”

But he hasn’t so much time for irony. So he continues:

“These places you tried to have access to. Are they linked to each of the entities? Sounds like that in your diary.”  
“Depends. But yeah. Some of them are linked to places, and cannot be reached in any other way. They are really different from each over. Some are almost real, I would say, like the one of your dream, some are only echoes…”  
“Can we… kill them? I mean… It looks like you tried…”  
“They are already dead, and some of them a thousand times. So my answer is no.”

The more they talk, the less he resists to her story. Accepting things, he supposes. Frightening.

“A parallel world? The world of the dead?”  
“A mix?”  
“You fought them with rituals and words. Hannibal got an idea of it. Should we do the same for tearing your lover from the asylum? Do you consider we really have the strength for it?”  
“So much questions inspector Graham. But yeah I think you could do that.”

Another sip, another sigh.

“So maybe I should not have let him go. Don’t know if I want to go there I must say. But Hannibal will certainly do.”  
“I said it was a try. No obligations. What about Arthur trying to kill you? What happened?”  
“It was after he found out about the files. He was lost. Sad. Strangely, I felt like it was legitimate. Not the gesture of a crazy, more the impulsive act of a wounded man. I will not…hold it against him, though I think that maybe I should.”

She looks so tender, he doesn’t know if he should blush or get angry.

“That’s what we could call a start, isn’t it? Sorry for all the inconvenience, but I know the two of you can appreciate a… risky life?”

Will doesn’t know what to answer. He doesn’t want to talk about how he manages his strange cannibal life with another person. Not ready for that. As he doesn’t want to exactly know what Harleen is aware of. It’s tempting that said. Beyond rationality, something says that he can trust her. She had done bad things too. As the evening comes, she gives him some clues about that, without being too explicit about it either. She also gives more explanations about Arkham though it ends-up being nonsense, as it appears that everything depends on the way each person’s psyche works.

Will decides that he will do his best for never going there. His growing fear being to be forced to do it for Hannibal, who will never hesitate to satisfy his insatiable curiosity, whatever the danger over there.

Confronting Harleen reminds him of his insane life choices. And yes he feels obligated in a way, remembering his tries to achieve a normal life for himself in the past. It didn’t work, and something in him wants it to work for her. Maybe the old Will Graham is still there.  
Strangely, his bond with Hannibal, the choice of being on his side, was not the terrible moral shift that should have changed everything. Of course, it changed a lot, but all had been in him from the start, and Hannibal only brought it to light patiently. Paradoxically, he’s not immune either to what he should call moral duties, such as protecting Harleen’s vow for a new life.

That said the idea of adopting her ex psychopath boyfriend and thus allowing her to build a future with her conscience clear is certainly the most absurd thing he ever heard in his life. Well no. The most absurd is that he actually considers the possibility.

It’s the night when he decides to leave Harleen’s place, hoping he saw her for the last time, cause he sincerely wants her to be safe with her new girlfriend and very far away from here.  
Outside It doesn’t snow, but the temperature has seriously drooped, he can tell despite the whiskey’s effects. It’s late, they talked a lot.

Damn she could be such a friend, he thinks despite his wish to let her go, while trying to remember his way to his car. Maybe they could exchange letters, he wonders, a bit amused at his own sensibility. Alcohol, certainly.

The almost silent streets of Gotham - a quiet that can be attributed to the cutting cold - look surprisingly beautiful to him. Some details of architecture only appearing now. The massive and gothic shapes of some buildings. As in all big cities, lights make the stars almost disappear, letting only the inky dark of sky to the eyes of late passers-by.

Where is the moon? He asks himself. And then, a brutal punch to his stomach cuts his breath. Everything fades to black.


	16. Chapter 16

When he wakes up, he has no clue about where he is. As his vision becomes clearer, he finds out around him a completely unknown place. He can’t move or rather fails to convince his will to do so. He may be tied to a bed, but doesn’t have the strength to check. 

He’s in what looks like an old bedroom that had not been used for a long time. Dusty, with this characteristic smell of old country-side houses uninhabited for years. The ceiling paint is chipped, with cobwebs at the corners. An ancient ceiling lamp with a cracked green ceramic lampshade. Rough linen bed sheets like in the old days. It’s dark, but not exactly night. Maybe very early in the morning. 

At his right, when he manages to move his head, he discovers a window.  
Not that external elements prevent it, but moving requires efforts; it's like he’s under the influence of a heavy drug. Turning his head enough to observe the window better, he has again the feeling of being in an abandoned place. Old torn lace curtains surround the panes and in the pale light coming from outside, he distinguishes tree branches oscillating slowly. He looks at them for a long time. It’s like they want to enter the room. 

He’s waiting for the light to change to see things clearer, but will he be able to notice the change when it will happen? He stares at this window for hours, invaded by the diffuse fear that no one will ever come to him again.  
When he finally takes his eyes off the sight, he discovers other things in the room. A little wooden table against the wall in front of him, with a candle holder on it. At his left, near the door, a wardrobe with two oval mirrors on its doors. He catches his reflection here, the leather straps that hold him on the bed. Strangely, he remains unsure of what he sees. He’s got the weird feeling that he looks at a painting, an image. This place is not real. 

The silence is heavy. Turning away from his reflection, he focuses on the ceiling again, trying to collect his thoughts. The idea that he’s a prisoner here since a very long time lingers heavily on him. He has trouble remembering what happened before he finds himself in this room. As if memories were running away from him.  
Paradoxically, he thinks he was with someone not a long time ago, someone he talked to for hours, but he can’t remember who it was. Everything’s so blurry. He’s practically sure it was a woman, and her name is somewhere in his brain, he’s sure he could remember it if he tried harder. But he doesn’t really want it. The leather straps are not so tight; he’s comfortable on the bed. He closes his eyes for what appears to be a very long time. 

When he reopens them, it’s the night, and there is a fireplace next to the small wooden table with a blazing fire inside. He can’t help himself feeling so relieved that time had actually passed, that someone came, that someone lit this fire, cared about him. Irrationally, he’s on the verge of tears thinking of that. Someone thought about him. Someone thought about him since all these years. Who is he?

There is a portrait above the fireplace, and he’s sure that watching it, he could have a clue and then remember. But it’s too dark now. Maybe it’s better to sleep a little more. Sleep is so sweet when it comes. He moves under his sheets, remembering that he imagined straps on him. But they are not here anymore. He has such an imagination sometimes.

He wakes up and it’s once again a grey morning lighting the bedroom around him. He looks around, and everything is more or less the same. The fire went out in the chimney, a slight smell of soot floats in the room. The portrait. He must look at the portrait above it.

The painting represents a man clothed in last century's fashion, a man with a sad expression on his face, sitting on a chair, staring at spectators with hunted eyes.  
He looks frightened, desperate, and he wonders why the painter gave him such an appearance. His gray hair, his skin almost green, like he was very sick. The painting gives him such a feeling that he must look away. If he hadn’t, he would have lost the sweet serene feeling he had when he woke up. It’s always such a pain to quit sleep. 

He’s not himself anymore. Someone entered his thoughts. He must resurface before completely forget who he is. He must remember. Maybe he knows how to do it. Yes. There is this sentence… ”My name is Will Graham…” Then he gives time and location. That’s it. His name. that's a thing.  
But what about the rest? “My name is Will Graham, it’s early in the morning and I am locked in an unknown bedroom after… I went to a girl’s place and her name was… Harleen? But who is Harleen?” 

That is something too he supposes. Good. He must try to move now. He can feel the restrains, then remembers it might be an illusion. And yes, he doesn’t feel them anymore. He sits on the bed. When he looks into the wardrobe’s mirrors, he sees a silhouette next to him. A purple coat, messy green hair.  
NO. HE MUST NOT. SEE HIM.

His eyes go back to the window with haste. Now he sees a part of the tree trunk. That’s better.  
He can stand if he really wants it. He succeeds. His legs are shaky when he approaches. He discovers a garden surrounded by high walls, with a greenhouse. Vicinity appears as desolated as the room where he woke up. It looks like he’s on the first floor. He should open the window but it’s like his will flees him at the though, liquid in a pierced bottle.  
He tries to concentrates, turning now his gaze to the inside of the room. Watching the bed, the urge to go to it and lay down is so intense that he almost falls on the ground. 

THAT is the thing that he must fight. This need to go to sleep is not his own.  
His eyes catch the eyes of the portrait above the fireplace. Does this exhaustion belong to this man? He goes to it, and on a small copper plate at the bottom of the frame, he sees a name. Amadeus Arkham. Yes. That makes sense but… As fast as the revelation hits him, the memories flee him one more time. He must remember who this man is. He knows him, for sure.

He will certainly learn more if he goes out of the room and tries to visit the place. Walking to the door is each step more difficult but by forcing himself, he’s finally able to put his hand on the doorknob. His vision blurs and he realizes he has tears on his cheeks. Each part of his body is shaking with despair like there’s someone or something on the doorstep who’s going to cut him to pieces. This is not him, he tries to remember. He turns the door handle and pushes, makes a step outside. He is in a long corridor covered with old stained wood, and kerosene lamps placed all along. He tries another step but falls heavily on the floor. He doesn’t feel the pain. Instead, his eyes close by themselves. He’s already sleeping.

He wakes up another time attached to the bed. Remembers his failed escape attempt. So his immediate memory of events is not altered. Maybe the one who keeps him here doesn’t want him to forget that. What an intriguing thought. And this person does something to his brain right now. He crosses eyes with the man on the portrait.  
Amadeus Arkham. Maybe this man does this to him. When he lingers on the idea, it seems that the mind inhabiting his since his arrival agrees. A mind that could also possibly lie. He can feel it. He suspects that this bedroom belongs to a person who is not Arkham. Someone who was his victim? Maybe someone who considers themselves this way. The man mostly looks like a victim himself. Something doesn’t fit. 

Wanting to change position, he mentally tries to remove his bonds. Finds out that he’s still able to do it. So he puts himself on his side and curls into a ball, trying to concentrate. He must concentrate. Direct his will towards his purpose. Understand how he’s able to do this and not do that. Maybe even how to work with this second mind entangled with his own. Such a damaged one. Feels so old and tied when he focuses on it. Yeah, it’s an old person. An old woman. He’s so close to her that maybe he could remember her name. He certainly could. Why is she so sad? But He falls asleep once more. His last thought is “mother”.

When he wakes up, there is someone with him in the bed. He can feel their heat on his back, all along his body, their arm on his waist. And he feels so happy not to be alone anymore. So happy he could cry. On an impulse, he catches the hand on him and squeezes it with his own.

In response, the body presses against him. Making him feel warmer, incredibly warmer. His eyes burn, tears flow on his cheeks. He just can’t help it. The hand in his. He brings it to his face, breathes in it like spring after a too-long winter. He remembers its smell. He misses it too long. He dives in it, a thirsty into a river.  
He feels like he inhales a powerful drug made of raw memories and flowers. Heavy flowers, fragile flowers raised in a tepid and sultry greenhouse. He almost sees their glowing pink veined with deep red. Sick flowers that will be eaten by rot too soon. Petals already withered on the floor. The vision is so intense he gets lost in it for a while. 

A leg comes to rest on his, hips pressing tighter on his ass. He can feel a hardness here. To his surprise, he finds himself filled with matching arousal, rising like an unexpected stream through his body, a body not waiting for his brain’s reaction. As if the sensation was so rare, never experienced for years and years.  
Letting go of the hand he held so preciously, he reaches out his arm and his fingers go to rest on this thigh that embraces him. He feels velvet here. Red velvet he knows. He turns slowly, not wanting to break contact, the heated cocoon he’s engulfed by. He puts himself on his back, the leg that trapped him still on his. He keeps it there with his hand, caressing the soft fabric that covers it. His eyes find eyes, and their striking vision goes to his soul, burning it with dark golden shards. It’s like he recognizes and doesn’t recognize him. A name that stays hidden in the folds of his mind.

In the grey light, he sees the waves of the red dress all over the bed, a warm puddle of blood half covering them. The frail shoulders of the one who wears it, the straps on the top of his arms, the wide neckline above an elegant drape. A sumptuous dress. The unveiled skin of the top of his chest, the fragile neck and haunted face of its owner. Dark hair and eyebrows, graceful wrinkles, something of an old gypsy princess. A magician. Who straightens up and leans on his elbow, fascinated by what he sees. His own creation. Someone he put completely under his power, whatever if it’s for only a few hours or days. 

His captive doesn’t have the strength to be baffled by what comes from this mind. He has no wish to resist it. He wants to bath in it.  
When his partner bends for kissing him, his mouth opens more than willingly. He grips velvet with urging fingers. Their tongues slide together almost with rage. It’s like his thirst for him is a monster he cannot defy. Soon he presses the body of the man in a red dress against the mattress with his own. Makes room for himself between his legs, searching for skin under fabric.  
Moans come from the thin man’s throat as his prisoner thrusts against him almost brutally. Eats his mouth with teeth and tongue, then slides to his neck, to his collarbone. Bites into the exposed flesh, wanting to mark him, to make him bleed. Dizzy with his smell, with the sounds coming from him. He wants to hear his voice, his screams. A spiral of need and desire swirls into his soul. He wants to rip him to pieces. To consume his body and mind. But even troubled as he is, he can’t help feeling surprised at this intensity, this violence which overcomes him. 

Somewhere inside him, he thinks that the man caused it. That he’s responsible for his abnormal state, that he wanted it. Velvet is pulled up on the top of his thighs. His fingers sink into the skin of his legs. He separates their groins glued together to remove the dress in one fluid movement.  
Bellow him, the naked body of his lover is finally revealed. He kneels on the bed for staring at him a moment. His frightening, unsettling and yet gorgeous fragility.  
The wavy shape of his ribcage under the skin. The valley of the inwardly curved belly and lower the form of his swollen penis in its furry nest. Going back to his face, he stares at the thin parted lips, the slightly off-centered scar above. Eyes glowing like possessed gems. On his forehead, there is another mark, fresh and tender, delicately sewn. 

Without knowing why this detail goes directly to his soul as much as his lower belly. He wants him to the point of breaking him down, destroying him. Making him part of his own cells. But instead, he brushes his skin with shaky fingers above one rib, navel, penis. The wetness at the top of it that he brings to his mouth. Hungry for every texture of him, solid and liquid. 

Beautiful eyes grow darker at this sight. His hands are on his thighs, on his waist, wanting his skin to come back, to make him disappear under his weight.  
His prisoner obliges.  
The thin man locks his legs across his hips. They kiss slower, deeper. Melting. He slides his hands inside his underwear, on the perfect roundness of his partner’s butt. The latter can almost see the painful thought that comes to him feeling so much beauty at his reach. He knows he stole it from someone. Someone who trusted him. Someone dangerous, that will come for revenge, and probably kill him slowly. 

Will delights in the exquisite taste of this guilt.  
How he will take advantage of it. Sliding his hands between his small ass in equal gesture, he brushes the tight entrance here. Nothing will hold him back. His lover begs him for pleasure as much as pain. He’s captive and master.

The body beneath him jolts at the sensation. He presses here, enters with the tip of his finger, feeling hotness and pressure. A sweet broken voice implores him to do more. He remembers hearing about that voice. The power of it. He wants to hear more. “Talk to me please,” he says, begging in turn. In response, eyes of green and gold, filled with surprise as much as lust dive into his. 

Yes he's taken apart by what he hears. He didn’t expect so much, had only imagined violence, revenge, brutal satisfaction of the needs he created. That’s what he’s used to. He hesitates a bit. “Touch me more”, he says, dropping things of this kind in the ears of his bewitched prisoner. This one then goes lower, licking tits, biting softly sensitive skin, still resisting these dark impulses that shake him to the core.

It’s with slow precautions that he enters him, knowing he will causing pain anyway with only some saliva at his disposal, a part of his mind howling that he should not do it. But the stranger who occupies his head doesn't mind, and he cannot believe the cruelty of them, their monstrous desire for the one he enfolds. He knows now. This old soul of a mother who abuses her sons. Arkham. 

He will not try to resist the lust that overflows him, which is his own and not his own. He will be as sweet as possible with him. He can do that. He’s strong. He remembers his name too. His name is Arthur.

Arthur. Arthur. Arthur.

Soft warm body of a cursed enchantress. Who tried to make him forget everything, but didn’t succeed so well.  
Though maybe he still has a lot to remember. Later. Now he will feed himself with their nearness, the smell of skin, the smell of sex. Enjoying the feeling of his mouth, of his insides, the feeling of relief that he wanted so much from him.  
He barely dares to move, but his lover encourages him to do so. Buried inside him like this, he could come just watching his tortured gaze filed with so conflicted needs. This terrifyingly erotic distress. He lets himself go, and he’s mother Arkham as much as he’s Will, whatever this one is. 

Arthur wanted it that way, he will do so. Surrender is the sweetest thing.


	17. Chapter 17

Hannibal’s house.

It’s been twelve hours that they are missing. He should not have waited so long. Something must be done, and now. Going back to Arkham looks like the most obvious thing to do, he will certainly find answers there. He spent the last hours reading and re-reading Harleen’s diary. Finally, concluding that one way or another, all of this must be experienced concretely.

He takes his decision, and finds himself in front of the Arkham asylum, remembering the first day he came here. The game is on now.

Not being on duty that day, he claims to have forgotten documents in his office. If there’s one thing he learned from Harleen’s writings, it’s that these journeys in the underground must be done in a sort of ritual order. Firstly, he will bet on redoing his initial course. Simple but it would be a shame not to give it a try. And on his desk, there is something for him. A card. This gives him his first smile of the day. He will never admit it, but these last hours made him feel something like… excluded? 

The card, a playing card and obviously a Joker one, simply mentions “Meet us downstairs if you can” in messy handwriting, which is neither Arthur’s or Harleen’s. But he’s got an idea of who could have written it. It’s an invitation, a challenge. A hunt.  
He takes a close look around him, checking if nothing has changed, looking for eventual clues. Maybe even this damn cat. Nothing more for now, so he leaves the place, steers toward the stairs. 

He finds himself on the ground floor, then the archives. He crosses the huge overflowing shelves, going directly to the place where he found a passage the last time. Of course, the door is no longer here. It would have certainly been too easy, but he had to check. Here again, he looks around him attentively. This time will be different. Very different he can guess.

So different that after several hours of researches, he doesn’t find anything. He goes out and goes in a thousand times. Stairs, doors, walls, everything stays the same. No trace of any alteration of reality, no path to any parallel world. Nothing. 

Another time, his patience is put to the test.

But he’s got the feeling that he must not give up now. Back to the archives one more time, to the oldest part of it. The most ancient files. At least he hopes to find something about the beginnings, something that he missed. He rummages through yellowed folders written in beautiful cursive script. The author of some is the founder of the place himself. Among the documentation collected by him and his colleagues at the time, he finds out a picture of them, the first doctors’ team who were in charge at the hospital.

Among the scientists, there is an older woman, near the one Hannibal recognizes as Amadeus Arkham, first director. His mother, he deduces.  
Probably because she moved her head when the photograph was taken, her face is blurred. Next to her, her son fixes the camera lens with particular intensity.  
Hannibal wonders if the first signs of his mental illness were already here when the picture was taken. The man looks worried, ill at ease.

He remembers how his mother’s death triggered his madness. She was very ill herself, probably from cancer, but he wasn't able to find a precise diagnosis. Her son took care of her every day during the long months leading up to her death, running out, refusing any outside help. From the moment she became ill, no one was allowed to see her. It was her will, and her son respected that to the point of exhaustion and madness.

The picture was taken in the summer of 1908. She died one year later, and her son was about, at this time, to exchange his doctor’s status for that of a patient.  
The other men are smiling, posing in front of the Arkham residence, on what looks like a bright sunny day. The two Arkham family members adding to the picture‘s mood diffuse melancholia. It’s not a lie to say that these two look already cursed.

However, he can almost smell the sweetness of the air warmed by sunlight. On the left of the picture, under a huge majestic oak, the table is set for tea time. White tablecloth and rattan armchairs around it.

The discreet fragrance of a first quality Darjeeling comes suddenly to Hannibal’s nostrils. Surprised, he takes his eyes off the image he was contemplating, looking around him, searching for the origin of the smell which had reached his reality. 

Nothing seems changed at first sight. He advances between the stacked boxes tracking the discreet scent. And at the end of the span he discovers, placed against the width of the shelves, a small desk with delicate shapes almost entirely covered by a large tray containing all the accessories for tea time, in the purest rules of art. Some delicate china rimmed in gold and painted with tiny flower patterns. The teapot smokes deliciously; the tea has just been served.

More than intrigued, a slight smile on his face, Hannibal pushes the chair in front of it and sits. He puts what he was reading on the carefully inlaid surface of the writing-table, watching at the tray he’s gifted by. Accepting the offer made, he grabs the cup and pours himself some steaming tea. He breathes its refined fragrance, trying to identify its origin but fails. Fascinating. The first sip does not disappoint. This is a first-rate variety and infusion is perfect. He decides to resume his reading, acting like as he would have in ordinary circumstances, delving into the detailed account of the oldest cases listed in Arkham, looking for hidden signs, anomalies in the lines of the man who founded the place.

Time passes and the teapot empties. Immersed in his task, he becomes slowly aware that certain details around him have changed. His satisfaction is only matched by his impatience to look around, a temptation that he patiently repels, for a little while longer. When he decides to do it, the least we can say is that he’s not disappointed. The cluttered metal shelves and neon lights are gone, giving way to what looks like a luxurious old-fashioned library.

It seems to be the afternoon, he deduces from the aspect of the light entering through the two tall windows of the room. On varnished wooden shelves regularly surrounded by ornamental twisted columns, we see the backs of beautiful leather-bound books, with titles engraved with gold or silver letters. It’s a beautiful place, calm and conducive to study.

Hannibal contemplates his surroundings for a while, hesitating to move, fearing the illusion would run away. He looks down at the papers in front of him and finds out that they are no longer the ones he was reading. In their place, there is a letter, being written. He recognizes Amadeus Arkham’s handwriting and begins to read it, assuming it was placed before him for reasons.

This letter is intended for a woman named Anna. It’s a breaking letter. Amadeus Arkham informs her there that he wishes to cut off all contact between them because his mental condition worsens and that he fears to put her in danger. He begs her, and this request undoubtedly causes him frustration and suffering. He reveals that he's the victim of awful hallucinations and that fatigue and lack of sleep alter his personality in a highly dangerous way.

That's when there’s a knock on the door. Hannibal looks up and says "Come in" without hesitation. He has waited for action too long. The door opens, and someone who looks like a butler, yet wearing rather extravagant attire walks in.

The man, dressed in black and white, wears a top hat, a huge bow tie with polka dots, a large white flower on his jacket, and plaid pants. But the most surprising is his very white face, on which an oversized smile seems to have been grafted by a mad cosmetic surgeon.

The man greets Hannibal with an obsequious bow and asks him, with that absurd smile and a honeyed voice: "have you finished your tea, Mister? Can I serve you again?”

Hannibal raises his eyebrows and decides to play just like he did the first time he switched into Arkham's parallel universe.

"With great pleasure, sir ... How should I call you?"  
“Jack, sir. To serve you"  
“Nice to meet you, Jack”

The man rolls crazy eyes above his oversized smile, but it looks more like comedy than actual madness. He approaches, grabs the tray, and leaves the room, overplaying zealous butler.  
The man returns a few minutes later, with the promised tea. "If I can help you with anything, don't hesitate to ask"

He was not going to deprive himself, Hannibal thinks.

"I have indeed a question” he begins. "I am looking for two people who have disappeared since yesterday and I was wondering if you could help me to find them"  
"Tell me more"  
"One of them is named Arthur Fleck, known in Gotham and Arkham as Joker, and the second is my husband. His name is Will Graham"

The strange man reacts with all the excess that seems to define his character. The request seems to enchant him particularly.

“Oh! That is a very clear and direct question! I see. And maybe yes I can help you. Well… May I ask a favor in return?”

A so-called butler asking for something in exchange for his help ... Arkham rules, Hannibal assumes, a bit amused by this new figure. 

Jack. Yes, there is a Jack in Harleen's diary. He remembers it. Jack Napier, the oldest in the strange line of these so-called Jokers who raged for successive years in the city and the asylum.

“And how could I help you myself, Jack?”

For some seconds, the man’s face goes perfectly still, as if some seizure had struck suddenly. Then the phenomenon is gone. The face readapts to the unnerving smile glued on it. Hannibal muses that it could be intentional, some sort of calculated threat. Arthur, yet quite differently, also makes that kind of thing. Maybe Jokers are a sort of species, he wonders.

Jack, after a calculated silence mimicking embarrassment:

“You look like a man of taste. My hobby is the conception of unconventional beauty products. Would you come to my lab and give me your opinion on one or two of my recent creations?”

As much as this generates also suspicion, Hannibal can’t deny that his curiosity is piqued. The hobby is mentioned in Harleen’s diary also. The art of matching all kinds of dangerous ingredients for creating what he calls his beauty products. Some mixtures will kill you, some make you ill, and others not. This crazy is a kind of artist working on hazard, that’s at least what he claims.

“It would be my pleasure” Hannibal answers sincerely. The other man is looking as overjoyed as he’s surprised. The underlying threat everyone is supposed to feel here is usually not received this way. Killer’s smell in the air.

“My lab is a bit messy currently but I would be glad to show you around. It can be now if you have free time” Jack specifies.

Hannibal asks himself what kinds of enigmas he will have to solve to obtain his answers.

***************

Jack’s lab is a mess, to say the least. Picturing the idea of the mad scientist’s lab perfectly. Flasks, test tubes, retorts, absurdly arranged and stacked scientific equipment, overflowing everywhere. Books, notes, all kinds of paper cut out and glued together in surrealist assemblages, invading tables, walls, and even the floor. More of a stage set created to impress or frighten than a real functional lab. It must function nevertheless, according to the smells that emerge.

To reach it, they had to leave the library and head into the basements of what appears to be the old Arkham family home, the one on the picture Hannibal was looking at when he was in the archives. Maybe he’s still there.  
And in what he should call his own reality, or maybe time, this house has completely disappeared. The idea of time travel lingers on him; it's something that always obsessed him. But this is not exactly time travel.  
More of something like a journey into a collective psyche. The memories of a place, built by those of all who have come here.

Was Will brought here and did he make the same conclusions? Is he still with Arthur? The latter seemed so eager to break down the forts and approach his beloved husband. He would have loved to see what seductive tricks the man was going to use. Thinking of this, Hannibal is more and more convinced that the two of them are not so far from him, maybe even in this house. 

The idea of visiting it on his own makes its path through his mind. He's going to wait a bit, see first what he can get from Jack. The man looks far from wanting to leave him alone, too happy to have found someone with whom to share his interests. Realizing that Hannibal understood what all is about, the latter quickly moved from potential experimental subject to counterpart with whom we can discuss recipes.  
As a sort of contribution, Hannibal gives him some advice for a few mixes likely to appeal to his whimsical mind.  
The maneuver seems to succeed, and the extravagant man, talkative, begins to recount his numerous achievements. After having politely given him time to unwind the best of them, Hannibal decides to redirect the conversation towards his interests: has he heard of a new person who would look like Will – He briefly describes him- or about Arthur Fleck in the last 24 hours?

At the second mention of this name, jack rolls his eyes and sights:

“Arthur, Arthur, Arthur. This boy will always prefer love to art and glory, a thing that I will never understand. So he kidnapped your husband?” Jack asks in a slightly mocking tone.  
” Oh by the way” he continues, “Would you like me to serve you a little more of that tea you enjoyed so much?”  
“Of course”, answers Hannibal, patient.

After carefully refilled Hannibal's cup, the man seems finally convinced that his interlocutor has deserved some answers from him.

“Well… Dear Arthur had always been a so sensitive fellow. I guess the departure of our beloved Harleen has something to do with it. A terrible loss… What an incredible woman she is, and she did amazing things for Arkham. Maybe he’s searching for a new psychiatrist. Is your husband a psychiatrist?”  
“No” answers Hannibal bemused.”But I am”.  
“Ooooh!” he exclaims exaggeratedly “ I see things so much clearer now! You would be a perfect match for him, and you understand beauty products so well…”  
“Could I find him here?” asks Hannibal another time, trying not to be too dry with the man who was until then rather sympathetic to him.  
“Yes, absolutely! I think he was there last night, visiting Dear Mother. Oh, he’s such a good boy when it comes to caring about people. It’s a shame that he can’t find someone who would take care of him the same way!”

Finally! Hannibal thinks, on the verge of impatience.

“Whose mother was he visiting?” he can’t help asking.  
“Eleanor Arkham, obviously. Amadeus’ mother, the soul that watches other us since all these years!”  
“I thought the old lady was dead years ago” Hannibal remarks, innocent.  
“Oh God, but she is!” Jack answers, grinning.” The poor woman suffered so much from illness. The thing is that we still can hear her groan and cry, sometimes. So Artie goes to her and tries to make her better. Such a good boy, as I say”  
" I see” Hannibal lets some seconds pass, thinking about that. Jack looks at him curiously, eager to see his reaction. His counterpart keeps his face neutral, only allowing himself a slight smile. He must insist.  
“And…Was he alone, when you saw him?”

Jack seems to suddenly realize something.

“Wait. Why your husband? Why did he not simply bring YOU here?” It’s clearly meant to titillate him, and Hannibal seriously starts to find the man a bit annoying.  
“I suppose he thought that I would follow. The boy can be provocative, sometimes, am I right?”  
“Of course! He has nice Joker qualities”  
“That’s what I was telling to myself”  
“Maybe he had company, that night. I was feeling like…Eleanor’s mood was better than usual” Jack continues with a mysterious tone.  
“What do you mean by saying so?”  
“She had her sweet moans,” he says holding Hannibal’s gaze with something salacious in the eyes.”Two lovely boys in her bedroom, what a night! Oh, maybe it was the day. I’m so distracted sometimes”

He should have expected something of this kind. This old Joker is tiring. Maybe he should get rid of him in one way or another. A shame that it would not be so useful for now.  
He has no more time to waste here.

“So I should pay a visit to the lady. Her bedroom is upstairs I suppose?”

Jack doesn’t seem upset, quite the opposite.

“First floor, third door to the left, on the opposite side to the stairs! And don’t forget to knock before entering! He practically shouts. “Will you finish your tea first?”He adds in a seductive tone.

“I preferred the first version” Hannibal answers, giving a quick disgusted look to the tea-cup next to him.  
” A shame to waste such delicious tea.” He adds. “Not fond of arsenic, even though I must recognize that it’s very well done, Jack. Something in the aspect of the water, though. Nearly impossible to notice, but I’m familiar with the substance. Your lab clearly indicates that you have a taste for it too”.  
“It was a joke, my friend, don’t take it seriously! You passed the test, BRAVO!” Jack bursts with disproportionate joy, starting laughing loudly. “Go to your boys, I don’t want to delay you any longer. Beware, though. Not every Jokers in Arkham are as friendly as I am!”  
“I will follow your advice, Sir,” Hannibal answers, moving to go out of the lab, definitely on his guards.


	18. Chapter 18

After having walked away to a substantial distance, hearing nothing move from the place he comes from, he allows himself a sigh. Things could have turned out differently, and he wonders how Jack would have reacted under other circumstances. He may feel some regret having let the mischievous man without doing anything, but he’s not his main target, he has darker ghosts to hunt, and his man to find.

He’s honestly intrigued by the story about Eleanor Arkham. Something authentically disturbing lurking here. Arkham’s rotten core is very near; he can feel it in his bones. 

His bones. Yes but…  
Would Jack’s tea have poisoned him if he drank it? Is it his real body that conducts him upstairs or all of this is pure illusion? He must admit he sails in unknown waters. Can these creatures suffer? He misses blood. He should have tried something, just to experiment. Maybe even drink this tea. It certainly would have had consequences but which ones? And why thinking about this rather than find out if Jack Napier could bleed? 

As he moves through the house, something in his mood is changing. It's not just his meeting with the old Joker, his frustration. The atmosphere does something to him. Triggering things in the darkest places of his mind. He couldn’t expect less, but the way his enthusiasm seems to move away as he advances is kind of destabilizing. He’s almost frightened to think about how all this could act on Will’s sensitive brain. He should have been intrigued, in normal circumstances. He needs to be cautious, watchful. 

Everything around him seems to deteriorate as he moves on. The house didn't look so run down when he was with Jack, he’s practically sure of it. As he climbs the stairs there is more and more dust, cobwebs, yellowed wallpaper peeling off. The light itself seems to have faded, all gloomy and gray. Everything looks dirty and sick.

He passes through the hall and arrives at the door he was told about. The silence is heavy as if the old building was holding its breath. It’s almost as if he could feel its abstract gaze on him. He’s not alone. He finds out that he can turn the door handle and push it without difficulties. Too easy. It opens onto a small bedroom rather monastic in appearance. He takes a few steps inside, and a very strange feeling seizes him, that he decides to observe as a symptom, with all the objectivity he’s capable of.

The bed has simple metal uprights at its head, the mattress is encircled with thick leather straps, like in old mental hospitals. It is undoubtedly a sick room and the mood which emanates invades him powerfully. Unmade sheets, a brown woolen blanket thrown at the bottom of the bed, as if the one who slept here had just got up. Hannibal's attention is immediately drawn to another detail: a red velvet cloth abandoned here in a messy pile.

He doesn't recognize it immediately, and then it comes back to him. Harleen's dress, which he first admired in Joker's dressing room, that he saw again worn by Arthur on this picture that fascinated Will so much. Obviously.

He approaches, sits on the bed, puts his fingers on the rough sheets then lets them approach the scarlet fabric as if it were a living thing, deserving deference. The heat of the body that carried it has disappeared, but it’s as if the velvet was throbbing under his touch. He can almost see it running to him, haunted, craving.

Such an experiment Will could have. As if this cursed bedroom had the capacity to amplify everything, to keep alive the emotions, the sufferings which it sheltered. Entering Will's head, experiencing the texture of his unique gift, this capacity of being so receptive. That’s what this place actually allows.

Slowly, he lies down on the unmade bed, grabs the piece of fabric and brings it to his face. He inhales deeply. Yes. They were here not a long time ago. Will and Arthur’s smells, entangled. So he succeeded, Hannibal concludes. He can’t repress a smile. This tortured mind, his fragile body, so full of resources when it comes to being loved. How did he go about it, with which demon did he make a pact to achieve this?

Will wouldn't have let himself be so easily convinced. The boy trapped him. Did something to his husband’s mind, using Arkham’s dangerous magic, this place’s magic. And he will not even punish him. Oh. Maybe a little bit.

He lets his lips wander over the velvet, his nostrils soaking up the story the dress tells him. He always had a wonderful sense of smell, but at this moment its evocative power exceeds all he has known before. 

It’s as if they were there, very close to him, materialized by the sick dust of this room devouring everything that touches it, a ghoul thirsty for life, for love. Arthur’s marked skin begging for lips and teeth. Will’s beautiful body like a gem in a dragon’s nest. Their shapes moving rhythmically, inventing their own music. With the tip of his tongue, he adds new wetness on the fabric. He closes his eyes, wraps it around his body, and lets himself go into sensations. 

Why resist the imperious ask? Maybe that’s dangerous, at least highly inconsiderate. He takes the risk, another time knowing he was certainly brought here for this. Arthur wanted that to be seen. Arthur always wants to be seen. He gets on his stomach, the red dress below him, feeling like a teenager jerking off, tasting the embroiled emotions. Frustration, pleasure, a bit of jealousy. Empathy. Appreciating them in their various nuances. Will’s, Arthur’s, his. The teasing, the danger of provoking someone like him this way, to nevertheless doing it whatever the result. The exquisite quality of the Arkham boy’s need for attention. Wanting him to lose control between the lion’s teeth, as he usually does himself.

Hannibal needs to get rid of his clothes. To feel velvet on his naked skin, on his belly, on his cock. To seek their traces on the sheets with his fingers and nose. Diving into the animalistic feeling of doing this. Here, in this abnormal world. Whatever precautions he could take, everything can happen. There is the possibility of being watched, of being attacked. It doesn’t matter.

He opens his shirt, his fly. Rough sheets and velvet getting in touch with the most sensitive parts of him. The dress as an impalpable body which could disintegrate under pressure and doesn’t, endowed with a unique power. The delicate sickness of this feeling of vulnerability that grows. Voluptuousness nestled into extreme fragility. Almost a signature. Arthur and Will’s cursed minds mingled are something so highly moving.

Velvet has tendrils.  
He feels them on his skin. Such a delicate touch, the sweetest touch. He knows he’s probably hallucinating. No, not exactly. It’s another reality. It’s different and he should live it, stop thinking. Anyway, he doesn’t know how to go back now. He doesn’t want to. The dress is moving against him. He sees Arthur’s eyes piercing him, Will’s beautiful curves arching. This red feathers’ wish to undress him. A hot sensation around his dick, on every part of his body, pressuring more and more. 

It’s not exactly like a mouth, or body’s insides. It’s light, bordering on tickling at one moment, like a mortal grab at another. It can move from drought to humidity, it can lick and certainly bite. Suddenly he realizes that he wears the dress, that his legs are locked around Will’s hips. The fabric still moves on him, heating his skin, strapping him, giving the feeling that it could lift him in the air. As fast as he thinks about that, he sees Arthur’s face smiling below him. The sensation increase to the point that maybe yes, he’s weightless, his body no longer in contact with sheets or bed. His two lovers tangled around him as blazing ghosts, their bodies remade with scarlet velvet.

The image of this black ribbon around Arthur’s body when he found him with his lover passes through his mind. He has the thought that his own skin could be marked too. He’s powerless, his senses put on fire by some ethereal forces.

He can feel Will inside him, he can feel Arthur’s body tighten around him. He feels these delicate tendrils connecting with every cell of his brain, moving on and inside his body, like a cocoon unmaking him slowly, methodically.

Then it seems that the polymorphic ghost engulfing him constricts and he comes, and it’s the strangest orgasm of his life. He not only feels the acme of his own body but those of his lovers too, their unique, different tonality and colors. The way their flesh alters filling his nerves, his soul, like a gigantic thunderbolt. His conscience fades.

*********************

When he comes back to his senses, his eyes are fixed on a fire, in the small chimney which he had briefly noticed on his arrival. Dancing flames with fairy contortions, glowing embers. He moved around without realizing it, maybe he made this fire himself, he doesn’t remember anything clearly. He has trouble connecting one thought to another, only knows that something very significant just happened. He must take his eyes off those flames. Their reflections on the bare skin of his thighs, the heat of the fire that feels so good trapping him.

But why is he naked? Taking a close look at himself, he finds dry semen on his belly and thighs. His own. 

He notices that he‘s sitting on a wooden chair, and nearby there’s a small table and the bed. He knows that by looking in that direction, he will have his answers. Something is holding him back. He’s not himself; he would not act that way. So he forces himself to see, and focus on what is in that part of the room.

He doesn’t see it clearly at first. It’s dark, his eyes need to adjust. Then he distinguishes a form, a human shape. The perfect stillness of it quickly gives him certainty: it’s a corpse. Someone dead in their bed, he muses, and pieces of the story come back together. He gets up, grabs the small candlestick on the table, and lights it with flames in the fireplace. He approaches, his arm outstretched, lighting up the dead features. 

The latter is in a very advanced state of decomposition, which explains why there’s hardly any smell in the bedroom. The body is mummified, almost sitting against several thick pillows, left there in a position that must have helped to breathe.

The eye sockets are empty, the skin dark and wrinkled like tree bark. This desiccated head is however surrounded by a crown of long white hair, in which some brown threads are mixed. The corpse wears an immaculate white nightgown; with its head slightly inclined to the side it looks like a morbid doll carefully prepared for the occasion.  
"Eleanor”, Hannibal whispers, the last events resurfacing. “Happy to meet you”.

Something is moving on the edge of the left orbit of the parched face. A tiny dark head with moving antennas appears in the void where eyes were. At first hesitant, he decides to show himself fully. A cockroach, which begins to get down towards the mouth, then neck, to soon disappear under the white fabric dressing the dead woman. Its soon followed by a small group of fellow-creatures, drawing on what remains of Eleanor Arkham's face a series of big black living tears.

The corpse doesn’t answer. Hannibal sits on the edge of the bed and brings the candle closer to the dead body. As he examines it, memories of what happened in that bedroom hardly more than an hour ago come back to his mind. Jack Napier's words also.

Does Eleanor’s soul still there, in this small room that her corpse seems to have never left?  
Is this the mighty, broken soul that feeds indifferently on the suffering or ecstasy of Arkham’s people, corrupting them to cheat the boredom of eternity? What an extraordinary meeting thinks her visitor, who is now completely back to himself.

Something from her may have stayed, but strongly altered. It seems that she was never buried. At least what he sees induces it. And probably the walls, the ground, the few objects of this place are impregnated in a unique way. He wonders if he could put the phenomenon on an equation. Not impossible maybe. But he has his wishes to say, and he muses on the act of talking to a dead person like he would do for a living one.

He hesitates. What would he have done to please an old soul who suffered so long? To obtain something from it? It’s not Eleanor anymore. A part of her has become something like a powerful undead creature. A complex entity, who takes itself for an old sick woman.  
He brings his hand to the head of the corpse, places it gently on its cheek.

“Sorry to disturb your peace like this, My Lady. Hope what I had to offer tonight pleased you. I’m searching for a beautiful boy named Will, and it appears that he’s in the company of one of your sons. I would love to join them, maybe you can help me."

So strange to talk like this to a dead thing. He’s used sometimes to say one or two words to the people he had killed. Not hoping for an answer though.

Removing his hand, he sees the head tilt a little further, and a small group of cockroaches comes out of the mouth, this time mimicking muted words. He lets one of the insects climb on his finger and watches it, curious, waving its small antennae silently. Does this one try to say something? Amused, he puts back the bug on the dead woman’s shoulder, which rapidly disappears into the nightgown.

*****************

“My name is Will Graham, it’s day, and I woke up another time in an unknown place”

In fact, maybe he has an idea about where he is. A place he saw from above. The greenhouse. The difference between this time and the previous one is that he is now upright and securely attached. In the middle of the plants. Then he realizes that it’s these that keep him still. Mainly ivy and brambles. It’s hard to make a single move.

Arthur is here with him, occupied. He cannot help feeling relief when he sees him, recognizes him. Waking up alone in an unknown place, with the feeling of having spent years here with uncertain memories is not an experiment he wants to live another time. He wonders if this was intentional. But they didn’t talk a lot he must admit.

He’s sitting almost at his feet, repotting flowers, manipulating young plants and handfuls of soil with care. Almost soothing to see him work. But it seems that he also considers Will as a vegetal. The latter has a brief thought for Eldon Stammets, not sure of what he must think of that.

“Arthur” he croaks, having no idea what to add next. How to deal with the new turn of their relationship as well as with these surrealistic circumstances. 

He looks up at him, eyes of a child, eyes of mystery. Some innocence remaining here, as a fascinating miracle. Is it because they have sex that he now sees him the way Hannibal would, despite circumstances? The way he’s attached is not exactly comfortable and he wonders about the reasons why. After all, his jailer got what he wanted from him.

“Yeah?” Arthur answers, interrupting his task, staring at him with some sort of wonder mixed with apprehension. Yes, he’s with the little boy, the enchantress is gone. That said maybe he sees her lurking in the corner of his eyes. 

“May I ask why I am tied up this way?” 

“You look so beautiful like this” He answers and it’s as shy as it’s disarming. His voice is soft, pleading. His amazing gaze, his fragile frame naked to the waist, bones outcropping under the skin. Will remembers with a frightening precision the sensation of these under his fingers.

“Do you want to keep me here Arthur? You know Hannibal will come.”

Did he feel the plants constrict a bit around him? The thorns of the brambles sinking into his skin?

“ I would love that, Will. And… I know.  
”Do you intend to catch him and keeping here too?”  
“I could try,” says the shy boy with a small sad smile.  
“Hannibal is dangerous” Will growls. Realizing he likes talking to him this way. God.  
“You are. And I am.”

Arthur lowers his eyes, hiding them under his long eyelashes. This dangerous fragility.

“He’s gonna find us. Tear you apart maybe.” Will adds, sadistic, thirsty for his reaction.  
“Really?” Arthur asks and there is a dark fascination in his eyes, some fear melted with desire, melted with… hope?  
“That’s what you want, don’t you?” Will answers resigned. No possible hold on this bittersweet death wish. He’s so used to dance this way.  
“That’s what I have usually,” he says confirming.  
“Harleen wanted to save you. She wanted the two of you to escape. Why was it not possible?”  
“Too much dark needs… You know.”  
“Yeah, I know”. He closes his eyes. Remembering Molly, his own disastrous tries, what it feels such a long time ago.  
“I suppose Hannibal can give you that.”

Arthur’s eyes go bigger, brighter. He smiles like a child, who is promised exactly the gift he wanted. It’s also a challenge. Does Will feel his vegetal ties constrict lovingly around him? Thorns searching blood. Oh, he’s got it now. 

“Can YOU give me that? Can the two of you replace all I have here? You know what Arkham is now. Do you think you could do better than that?”  
“You’re missing something here. Real flesh, real blood. Love. Life.” He doesn’t know why he says that. Why he defends their option. Despite considering that what they share was a rather nice experiment, he should certainly not be so adamant.  
“Half dead lovers. Ghosts. Magic yes, and also illusions.” He continues.  
“Don’t you want to see outside, to see the world? You lived all your life here Arthur. Arkham is something, I can give you that. You want more, but you think you can’t adapt to the real world. That you’ve gone too far.” One of the brambles moves like a snake and whips his skin viciously.  
“You live in the outside world. I mean. You and Hannibal.”  
“Yeah,” He says, smirking. He knows it’s cruel. Perverse. 

So Arthur stands, approaches him. They are chest to chest. He closes his eyes, smelling him like Hannibal does. Sending shivers to Will’s body, despite himself. Arthur tilts his head, whispers in his hear:  
“I know what kind of monster you are, darling Will. I know everything about the two of you”  
“Do you?” Will snaps, sarcastic.”And what are you gonna do with that? Keeping us here, in your half-dead world like dolls? Expand your collection?”  
He feels thorns go deeper into his skin. He knows he’s bleeding now. He can smell it.

“I want to share your meals, go with the two of you into the world. Can’t you see how starved I am? But will you allow it, husband?” He says insisting sardonically on the last word.  
“You will not be afraid? Of us? Of yourself? You’re tender meat, you know.” Will answers trying to avoid seeing how troubled he is. Willing.  
“I’m rotten to the core. If you try to eat me, you might die.” His voice is so sweet, so sad.

Will closes his eyes, feeling like he’s drunk. He should not react like this. That makes no sense. It’s Arkham teasing him, again. He feels the man’s breath on his skin and he could cry. He wants the enchantress back so much.

“Sorry Arthur. Can’t talk for Hannibal. He could surprise you. You should be aware of that”  
“Oh, I am aware. I love to be surprised. And surprising others too”

Will thinks he’s going to touch him. And he’s craving it. But the man’s heat is gone. Slightly, the pressure of his ties decreases. He feels his blood running on his skin. As he opens his eyes, he sees Arthur facing him, and going to his knees. The gesture makes all his body jolts. 

“What do you think about me eating you for now?”

Dark eyes with dancing galaxies into. Hunger. His face coming nearer, the thorns getting out of Will’s flesh, followed by blood. Arthur’s mouth on the reddened flesh of his thigh. A hot tongue licking it slowly. Teeth on his skin, tentative. As the pressure of the ties decreases, he realizes that he’s bleeding from everywhere. The thorns went deeper than he thought.

Then, a deep, hoarse and familiar voice comes from behind.

“Can see that I’m late for the feast.”


	19. Chapter 19

Earlier

It would be so unreasonable of him to believe having left Eleanor's room on his own initiative.  
Hannibal guesses that something in Arkham decided this, whatever is hidden under this name, ghosts, demons, or collective mind. Even considering that events turned in his favor, his inability to act on his environment is a rather destabilizing factor for someone like him. He knows that his will, and even unconscious parts of him have a role to play. But he doesn’t know exactly how, and the lack of control makes him struggle. No matter what might have happened in this room, he couldn’t have done anything. He was this place’s plaything. Whether the experience was pleasant or not doesn’t change anything. 

Frustration is back. He wanders around the house, trying to find something. He realizes that if he wants to find the one with no name, he hasn’t got any clue on how to do this. He thought about coming back to Jack, but when he did, man and lab had of course vanished. He feels like a mouse in a labyrinth. He must stop and think. What triggered his arrival here? The truth is that it’s the moments when he almost forgot his purpose. Yes. The place functions as a human mind. In some way it is. A complex one, made of thousand, but a mind anyway. He may act on it. He already found one or two of its levers, he’s sure he could do better.

What does he need to create a favorable atmosphere with his patients? They need to be confident, to be at ease. Putting pressure is therefore of no use. Harleen asked questions, used rephrasing, and got answers exactly the way a therapist does.

A session without words is still a useful session. It’s part of the process. Maybe he should go further. Observing the surroundings, the context, can be useful. And if he considers what he just lived in Eleanor’s room, he’s already got some elements to study. Then appears the dizzying feeling that HE is a part of this giant mind which he needs to understand mechanisms. As Eleanor is, ghost, soul, or only corpse. The other one. Arthur obviously, and even Will now. Establishing connections between these parts is like reconnecting memories. Resolving a trauma.

It's evening. A winter evening, he supposes, watching the bare trees whose branches wave gently in the wind.

It’s an agreeable atmosphere, a soothing moment. Did Arkham allow this? Is he part of the decision? There’s a beautiful sky, with tender mauve colors. All these details. How far this universe extends? Can he reach its frontiers? Does it have some? What if he goes to these woods at the edge of the park, and how far can he go into? Something tells him that this place does not extend the limits of the future Arkham as he knows it, in what he may call his own dimension. All he sees here are constructed images. He’s into Arkham Asylum, whatever shape it took. Where Arthur would have taken Will if they were in the concrete hospital? Surely in a place that he knows well, where he feels secure. 

Was Eleanor’s room something like this? It was more of an operating room, filed with what he could call the best equipment. An alchemist lab. But it was not his. What kind of place Arthur would consider this way?

He turns around another time, looks at the house, with its shutters closed on its vivid, powerful nightmares. A mother’s house.  
It’s as if Will and he have been presented to the family. And now, the boy may have returned to his own area, not so far away. Poor Arthur was never able to get rid of a mother’s influence. A mother who is protecting him, in her own monstrous, incestuous way. Distractions are brought to her in exchange and she’s not going to let her son be discovered so easily. The story could make sense.

Maybe there’s a watchdog somewhere near.  
And the peaceful atmosphere could be a trap. Why doesn't he take a walk to the woods, just out of curiosity? There he could meet the bloodhound, and the latter could get rid of him without the fragile child hearing the cries of the intruder. It's not that Mother Arkham doesn't like him. It's not personal. It's protection, maybe some kind of ordeal. Go into the woods, find the bloodhound, and if you can escape him, we'll see.  
No, wait. He will come to him. Now. Its outline built by shadows. He will see him in seconds. That’s what he wants, what Arkham wants. That is the process.

And the silhouette is here. He recognizes it, exactly as it took shape in his mind. So he will be able to unleash his rage, as all Arkham’s sons do, and then he will find what he wants. Good.

It’s a poorly defined image at first. As if his brain had chosen to formulate this way the fact that this apparition is his own creation.

As he walks towards Hannibal, his shape becomes clearer, he distinguishes his clothes, their colors, the painted chaos of his face.  
A large purple coat, a green jacket, a tie in the same tones. Leather gloves, unkempt hair. His head sinks a bit into his shoulders, and with the graceful speed of predators, he comes straight to him. Hannibal catches sight of his crazy eyes under the thick smoky makeup. He’s filled with the joy of the hunter facing a prey deserving his complete attention.

It seems that the pleasure is shared. The smile of his opponent, increased by monstrous scars, splits his face in two while a ghoul hiss escapes his throat.

There is no preamble. He attacks head-on, brutally, with vicious aggressiveness, a switchblade knife shining in his gloved hand.  
No technique, only strength. When his weight hits Hannibal, the latter is surprised by the relentless force that throws him to the ground unceremoniously. At the same time, he is seized by the powerful scent of the man, whose face is suddenly very close to his. He's running his tongue over his lips and a trickle of saliva falls on Hannibal's cheek.

One of the gloved hands clenches his throat while the second treacherously thrusts the knife between his ribs. Hannibal manages to stop him, the blade half sunk into his flesh. He catches and squeezes his wrist until the knife slips away, twists it with a sure and vicious gesture. Above him, he sees his opponent's face twitching in a disappointed grin. A hoarse sigh escapes his lips, the mad smile widens and the hand that encircles his throat tightens in a very controlled way. This one is not really sensitive to pain.  
The disproportionate mouth moves closer to Hannibal's ear, and he can feel his breath, the tip of his tongue as these words are whispered to him:

“You don't let it go easily, doctor.”

His current situation does not allow Hannibal to make an answer. But taking advantage of the slight imbalance that his action has caused, he rocks their bodies to the side, taking the advantage, and it’s his opponent who finds himself below. At the same time, he tries to get rid of the hand that tightens his throat like a vice. The over one showing unusual resistance.

The embrace around his neck loosens but it’s his adversary who in turn destabilizes him. For a while, both compete for the upper hand.

Then Hannibal finally puts his hand on the knife and thrusts it into the belly of his enemy, screwing it into his flesh. A laugh escapes the latter's throat. Hannibal spins the blade deeper and the other laughs louder, a mad laugh mingled with hiccups.  
He manages to stabilize himself, on all fours above the crazy. Their eyes meet.

“You can’t kill me” croaks the man.

“At least I had to try” answers Hannibal. He brings the blade up to the ribs, pushes it deeper, taking advantage of the widening of the wound to plunge his whole hand into it.  
This last gesture occasioning a spasm to his opponent. He’s therefore not exempt from all sensitivity. He observes with satisfaction the pain altering his face noticeably, despite the coat of paint on it.

He growls, voice altered too:

“Willing to touch my heart, doctor?”

“Indeed,” Hannibal answers, his hand deep into the body of the other man, utterly fascinated. It’s undeniably a human body, with human blood, endowed with human organs. But everything inside vibrates, as crossed by powerful electric currents. The sensation is quite unique. The smell of his blood is slightly different too. There are rotten tones in it. As if he had just reached the early stages of decomposition.

But what intrigues him most is where his sense of touch conducts his mind.  
The idea that he triggered the appearance of the mad man himself comes back. The throbbing evoking something of a bomb. As if every organ in this body threatened him with an imminent explosion. The chaos he wanted to set off himself. Did he induce that? 

He cannot kill the man, that’s true. As much as he dislikes the idea. He cannot kill an illusion, a product of his mind mingled with the one belonging to this place. That makes no sense. In the same way, he must admit that the threat doesn’t really exist. He wanted some fight and blood, it was given to him, but this is not his real goal. When these thoughts come, mollifying his rage, it seems that the solidity of the body below him fades. The painted man’s laugh rings out again as if he tried to hold him back. The crazy smile widens again if that is only possible. He speaks again:

“Looks like you learned something, finally”

He doesn’t answer. Slowly, his arm, his hand, extracts themselves from this fictitious yet so real body. He guesses how he could act on the intensity of the throbbing, maybe even on the smell of the blood. He concludes that he wanted to entertain himself, as much as to make a bit of practice.

He contemplates his hand covered in blood. The shape of the knife, no longer looking like a real one, is more of a draft that a sculptor would have made of the object.  
Below him, the body of the other one seems to become coarser, to lose the sharpness of its edges. The living, powerful body that pulsed just a moment ago between his arms and legs becomes uncertain, as a statue of clay. 

He gets up as the other's form crumbles, eventually merging with the earth. Hannibal observes the phenomenon carefully, quite satisfied. Now he must go and find his boys.

He still doesn't know exactly where to look for, but now he has an idea of how he can turn the cogs of this mental machine named Arkham. Let’s go for a final walk.

He goes around the house once more, and he sees it. An old abandoned greenhouse. He realizes that he hadn't noticed it, or rather that it was not visible to him until now.  
It is relatively imposing and of remarkable architecture. Many of the glass panels that form both its walls and roof are shattered, and its metal structure covered in pale green paint is rusting away.

He takes that direction without hesitating. The door is ajar. Inside, there are plants that have grown up exuberantly alongside others which have not survived lack of maintenance, withered and left to rot. An artificial environment returned to nature. Or the image of it.  
The place is large enough so he does not spot them right away. The heavy and humid atmosphere produces a surprisingly soothing effect on him. It smells like earth and he notices the strong fragrances of rare exotic plants. At the bend of a giant hibiscus filled with heavy black flowers, bloody at heart and crumpled on edges, he finally sees them.

It’s a stunning sight, up to his standards.  
Will is a bloody ruby stone, set in a gangue of emerald vegetation; at his feet, Arthur licks the blood that runs on his skin. 

He evokes him an icon, a half-Christianized god, a saint dedicated to pagan rituals, whose name has just been changed. Hannibal wonders about what name he could give him now. His troubled body violently shaking under his partner’s ministrations. Will's eyes are down on Arthur's face, he doesn't see anything of what's going on around him. Isolated from the world, from the world into the world. He contemplates them for a while, taking care to memorize each detail of the tableau.  
When he finally decides to announce his presence, he's surprised by the way his voice comes out of his throat, rough, animalistic.

Will looks up at him slowly, his gaze weighed down by lust, by the strange treatment he receives. He’s dizzy, angry, aroused. Nevertheless, this savage violence, this unique madness that they share is rising between them, passing through locked eyes. 

Something unravels inside Hannibal, into this human part that is afraid of losing him, this human part he founds open so easily since he began his journey here.  
His husband is still here with him and still loves him. They will continue killing and eating people together, celebrating the beauty of life and death. Nothing can break their bond, not even this place with its haunted parallel world, not even that. But this place gave them a strange gift. He sees it in Will’s eyes, smiling with this dark smile of him, and he sees what he wanted to achieve, what he hardly dared to dream. 

Will’s eyes slide slowly from him to Arthur’s shape at his feet. The latter also turns around, looking at Hannibal, and his eyes grow wider seeing what he sees.  
He’s covered in blood, a wild beast that came to collect its property. Ready to fight for it. Arthur can feel the strong connection he makes with his lover like a change in the air. Hannibal comes forward, aware of the threat he emits, wanting the daring boy to feel it. This one is real, and he can snap his neck whenever he wants. Real flesh, real blood, the smell of his fear. Exquisite.

“Free him, Arthur,” he says, voice more steady now. A lot of things flickers into the latter’s eyes, but the plants that were holding Will loosen their grip and he falls heavily on his knees.

“ I’m ok” he mutters, trying to find his senses back.

Hannibal crouches near Arthur. The three of them look at each other, hesitating. Then Will, on all fours, advances toward his mate and snuggled into his arms. Hannibal holds him tight. He lets himself sink into the feeling, before sensing a change in Arthur’s scent. He’s watching them, his gaze piercing them to the core, his body starting to tremble despite himself. 

He begins to laugh, and it’s loud. Painful.

“Hey!” Will reacts, turning around in Hannibal’s arms. 

“So… Sorry” Arthur mutters between hiccups.

“I… that… didn’t happen… to me since… a long time…” He manages to say.

Hannibal is observing him closely. Trying to decide if he’s sincere or not, if he plays this part for tenderizing them. Difficult to say with this one. There is this part of him that feels so easily rejected, this strong part of his persona that he can even smell on him. Despair, fear of solitude belonging to his skin, to his cells. Despite what he became, despite everything. But there is the laugh, that he managed to control through the years, using it as a signature. That he visibly doesn’t control now. So Hannibal bets that in his weird way he cares about them. That it’s not just comedy. And he loves this fragrance so much. A vulnerability that can become violence so easily. Cause he wants to kill them badly. So jealous. It’s like wine. 

And then the ivy stems, not the brambles he notices, start to move again. Slowly, softly, hesitating. They first crawl on the ground then straighten up. As much a threat as an enchanting vision.  
Meanwhile, Arthur tries to contain his laughter and roughly manages to do so. His hands are tight on his throat, he tries to catch his breath. Hannibal can't help but smile at the elegant way he delegates his emotions to his surroundings. It's intimate, he feels like he's inside his mind. In a way, he is.

The stems, dancing shyly in the air, approach the couple, and Hannibal raises his hands to reach the delicate moving forms. Will stares, caught by the moment too. The stalks of young ivy, with their delicate tiny leaves, come and wrap around Hannibal’s fingers.

“That’s beautiful Arthur. May I ask where did you learn that trick?”  
“A girl told me” He answers, his voice still husky and week. “She’s gone”. And after a while:  
“Will you let me here too, after that?”

Hannibal looks at him, but it’s Will who answers:

“Isn’t it you who doesn’t want to leave? You play siren’s song to be rescued, but you’re afraid to leave your magic, the power you’ve got here. Am I wrong?”

Arthur looks down sadly, frowning a bit.

“I can’t leave, you’re right. I’m a prisoner here.”

Hannibal finally speaks:

“Of course you can leave. And I’m sure you can bring the magic with you. It’s part of you. Wherever you may go into the world, you will keep a part of Arkham in your cells. Are you not curious to see how it may work? Cause I am.”  
“Really?” he says tentatively.  
“ Arkham made you what you are as much as you transformed it. Powerful illusions vanishing abruptly into dust. A capricious move of your heart and all of this disappears. You command to this place, as you command to reality. Here is your soul, as much as your roots. But you can go wherever you want, and come back when you need it. You’re free”

Will intervenes:

“You brought your filthy lover to my bed Arthur. To my dreams. You wanted to force me this way cause you thought you would never be able to convince me by yourself. You did the same with brambles. And... I had brambles, he’s got ivy. I could be jealous.”

Hannibal looks at his mate from above, surprised, amused.

“I didn’t know the two of you already had secrets”. He pauses.” Your heart is made of brambles my love, and Arthur saw it."  
“Possibly so” Will answers with a sigh.  
“I’m sorry Will” Arthur adds, unsure.

A crooked smile comes to Will.

“You played with my darkest fears too. Fear of my brain losing its memories, fear of losing myself in the mind of another monster”  
“Mother Arkham is not a monster. She’s suffering.”  
“Eleanor is part of you too” Hannibal adds. “More exactly what you made of her. A substitute. Are you sure you still need a mother of that kind, Arthur?”  
“This one will never betray me” he answers.  
“And she’s already dead”  
“I suppose it matters,” Arthur says with a muted voice.

It’s Will’s turn to laugh:

“Hannibal always had a thing for adoption. I’m sure he could make a terrifying mother just the way you like. His earlier attempts ended badly though.”  
“Is it true? Arthur asks with a sort of candor hiding badly his morbid interest.  
“I suppose it’s true. Do you care?”  
“No.”

Hannibal smiles. Will can’t help himself and smiles too. He sees Arthur scrutinize them curiously, fascinated by this two-headed hydra in front of him. Love interest of a monster for another one. And drowning into green eyes enhanced with gold, Will remembers the taste of the enchantress, the way Arthur created their bond, how powerful it is. 

“I want to go home,” he whispers, tired of illusions and brambles, secretly embracing the idea of tasting gypsy queen into Hannibal’s luxurious and tangible bed sheets. Why trying to avoid this if they want it so much? To deprive himself of a pleasant experience is not what he learned during the years spent with Hannibal.

Hannibal studies him fondly. Then he turns toward Arthur:

“We’re going home, if you don’t mind. And you’re welcome to come with us. I would be glad to debate all of this in front of a good meal.”  
“Are you… not mad at me?”  
“It was a unique journey Arthur. How could I be mad at you?”  
“Don’t listen to him, that doesn’t mean anything about your future” Will specifies, not even knowing if it’s cruelty or warning on his part.  
“I don’t care either.”

They definitely have a dynamic, Hannibal notices.

“Will you come?” He asks with a hint of theatrical emphasis.  
“Yeah.”


	20. Chapter 20

The first thing he sees when he wakes up is Arthur sitting cross-legged on the bed, a pillow in his lap, staring at him. Messy hair, face soft and milky with sleep; a lovely view. He still has this gaze, devouring Will with eyes. The latter asking himself if he will be sated one day. The morning light is crowning his hair with gold, caressing the skin of his shoulders. Old bruises fading a bit, and new ones.

He’s so relieved to think that he’s in the real world, at the beginning of a day that is going to end and be followed by another. A sunny winter day, an almost ordinary one. 

Just two days ago, he couldn’t have imagined letting someone enter his life this way. This prey that Hannibal had brought back to their home, breaking all the rules they had set for this kind of situation. Only two days. And it's like it was a thousand years ago.

“Hello, Arthur,” he says, remembering all these things he can barely believe, including what he had done after they came back from Arkham. Over there, the way illusions faded like a light that goes out and how they ended up in a gray, poorly maintained mental hospital. Hannibal taking care of the numerous scratches left on his skin, these not having disappeared. His body now marked as much as Arthur’s. He’s as angry with the idea as he secretly likes it.

“Hello,” Arthur answers with his soft muted voice, looking at him as if he was a gift or a miracle, as if, having done what he did, he couldn’t believe that he succeeded. Will’s surrender was not given when they left the asylum and came back to the couple’s house. The cannibals’ house. One of them not really sure if he will be slaughtered or not. 

And then, when they went upstairs for going to sleep, that Arthur, unsure, was about to return to the guest room he had occupied earlier, Will grabbed his hand and led him to the master room. Hannibal didn't say anything when he took him in his arms and kissed him hungrily. Even in bed, he didn't do much, just watched them, then let Will fall asleep on his shoulder with Arthur nestled in his back. 

That’s what they have done, and a part of him will need time to adapt. But another is so already into it. He approaches and kisses the top of one knee. Hesitates a second and comes to rest his head on Arthur’s crossed legs. Wondering on what Hannibal must do, since he has left the room earlier. The answer quickly coming to his nostrils, as the most obvious thing. 

“I think I’m hungry”, Arthur announces at the same time. Saying it as if it was one of the weirdest things that happened in his life. Maybe it is.

“So you should go downstairs. Hannibal is making breakfast. I think I need more rest”. And being alone for a while he thinks without saying it aloud. It’s not his first intent, but everything is so overwhelming. He should take some time, though the only thing he can think about is to bury himself into this bruised flesh once more. That’s always the result when he tries to hold on, he should have been aware. To what Arthur gave birth to during their trip to Arkham, he was not prepared for.

“Do you think there will be human flesh?” His companion asks innocently, interrupting his thoughts.

Will smiles, laughs softly. 

“Maybe. I’m not even sure. Hannibal and I haven’t hunt a lot since we heard about… you. But he certainly has reserves. And he couldn’t have neglected today’s occasion.”  
Arthur looks at him, doubtful. Then he makes this face, half childish half pervert.

“I see. I will go and come back soon” he answers suddenly confident, letting a hand wander into Will’s hair, bending for kissing his forehead.  
Manipulative prick, he thinks, amused, aroused. Once more. Fuck. He really needs air.

“Ok”. He watches him as he gets up, puts his pajamas on, the ones Hannibal bought him, smiling like a happy lover before leaving the room. Unbearably charming. Now he realizes how everything was probably made on purpose. Hannibal will certainly adore this.

Downstairs, the latter stands in his lavish kitchen, cooking sausages and omelet. Arthur enters the kitchen with the discretion of a cat, and Hannibal has the thought that if he had come for attacking him, he could have reacted with one second late. But seeing his face, he clearly knows that it’s not the purpose. 

“Hello Hannibal,” he says sweet and polite, maybe teasing a bit. He looks so pleased with himself.

“Good morning Arthur.”

Hannibal observes the thin man coming to him, delighted by his boldness, the way he plays with his murder instincts. Will’s smell on him is so strong that he can’t smell anything else since he entered the room.

“Would you have something to eat?” he asks childlike, as if begging for a big favor.

Definitely a tease.

“Of course. What would please you most?”

“Some meat?” he says leaning against the counter between worktop and sink. Only in his pajama bottoms, showing skin, albeit crossing his arms over his chest in a delightful modesty gesture. 

The provocative gaze that Hannibal is starting to know by heart, altered by something he might call apprehension. Could he be a little bit impressed at the idea of what he asks?

“Still want to test new things, dear boy? My husband’s needs were not enough for now?”

“Well... I only want to put something into my stomach, you know. You cook really well.” he says, wide-open eyes piercing Hannibal’s.

He doesn’t need to wait too long for a fork with sausage and eggs to come to his mouth.

“I made a pretty similar breakfast to Will the first time I cooked for him.”

Arthur chews slowly, swallows without taking his eyes off him. Hannibal loves the glee he sees here in reaction to his care. He pikes the morsels directly into the pan; it’s intimate, a bit messy, just as his guest. He grabs a cloth to rip of some egg at the corner of his mouth. The next time he cleans it with his mouth. Lingering here, inhaling the trails of Will’s kisses. 

Quickly he sees that Arthur swallows with more difficulties. So easily sated, when it comes to food. He guesses that the boy would have loved to eat more if he could. How sweet.

He contemplates this face on which hardships have carved strangely seductive wrinkles. Everything is so imperfect about him, and all of it makes him so perfect. A delicate monster, made of poisoned meat, of childish needs, king of a sick kingdom that he dreams of fleeing. A butterfly born from the garbage of the town. He always had a weak point for people who came from lower social classes than his. The way they thrive sometimes, against rationality, against the world. He wants to take this one everywhere, to show him the world. And maybe eating him one day.

He sees that he’s tired. He had a long night and the speed at which the few grams of food he has ingested makes him dizzy is striking. Hannibal assumes that this is something he can usually overcome and that here and now, he allows himself to let go. Sweet pliant doll.

“Always so willing, Arthur.”

He brushes his cheek with light fingers, let them go down to his neck, torso, and belly. He puts the palm of his hand flat on it like he were pregnant. They are almost forehead to forehead.

“Are you going to kiss me or not?” Arthur almost moans.

“Your need is so beautiful to watch. I’m curious to see the amount of excessive love you could take.”

This body.  
Just below his eyes, that bone which protrudes oddly from his shoulder. Lower, the way the tiny nipples are a little close together, shaded with light brown hairs, and the hollow between them, strangely moving.

Hannibal’s hand strokes the tender belly skin then goes to his side, on the hip bone, just above the rubber band of pajamas. He slips a thumb into it. Thinking about Will’s semen inside him. As the thought comes, Arthur shivers, as if he knew. 

He rests a hesitant hand on the belt of Hannibal's robe. Bathing him with his glowing gaze, studying his features closely. 

“Your face is so beautiful. So strange” He whispers. Hannibal raises his eyebrows, amused. “I love it so much,” he adds. This innocent yet not so innocent way of saying things.“I liked the way you looked at me this night. Your eyes staring at me.” “At us.” He specifies shyly.

“You were incredible together.” Hannibal answers.

“Can I?” Arthur asks, his hand tightening on the robe’s belt, with a surprisingly confident smirk. The ways he changes abruptly from one mood to another, always so striking.

“Please do.”

The belt knot is skillfully undone, right away. Below, Hannibal is in his pajamas.

“You are always so… clothed… Even this night, you were… wearing this.”

“As you are often half-naked. Don’t let yourself be discouraged so easily.”

Arthur grins. Feeling with the tip of fingers the sweetness of the nightwear made of wild silk, and the muscular chest below.

He undoes the buttons one by one, carefully, almost solemnly. He pulls aside the two parts of the pajama top, pauses a moment to contemplate Hannibal's torso.

He puts a careful palm on the hairs covering the man’s skin here, his hand like a cautious animal. Arthur's hands are large compared to the thinness of his wrists, to the point that they seem to have a life of their own.

With both of them, he explores Hannibal's bare skin, makes the robe and pajama top slide from his shoulders to his arms, letting them fall to their feet.

Not shying away, he undertakes to undo the tie which holds the bottom of the pajamas, and with a hasty gesture, makes it slide to the ground too. He kneels to help him free his feet, looking up to his face, to his body now completely bare. Their eyes meet. Then he goes on exploring the skin of his legs as if he wanted to make sure he’s real. He lets his hands discovering him eagerly, looks at everything with such intensity. The waves of the muscles under the skin, the half-hard shape of his dick pointing at him. He brings his face to his thighs, puts his cheek on one of them, closes his eyes for a few seconds. He brushes his dick with fingers, causing it to harden more, and gets up. They finally kiss.

Maybe it’s more forward than they expected, their tongues reaching each over almost immediately. It seems that they waited a long time. The same attentive passion guides them, Hannibal melting into the way his partner wants to reach for and know everything about him. 

He’s aware that Arthur certainly had a fair number of lovers during these last years, that he probably tried everything that was possible to try, even creating a being that fitted exactly his needs. He cannot help being stunned by the way he touches him, tastes him, as if it was the first or last time, as if he had been absolutely alone until this moment, deprived of physical contact, the way he was before circumstances led him to Arkham.

As if he had not spent the entire night into Will’ arms, loving him with the same hunger he demonstrates now.

When they finally broke the kiss, Arthur lowers his eyelids under Hannibal's scrutinizing gaze.

“I know what you think,” he says turning away, hiding his face into Hannibal’s shoulder.

“What do I think Arthur?”

“I am insatiable.”

Hannibal smiles to the brown curls tickling his nose.

“As I am. It’s not something I could blame you for.”

Arthur snuggles even more against him.

“Maybe you are… the two of you… the thing that I yearned for since all these years. And Harleen found you. Or… Maybe I invented you entirely…"

“Do you think so?”

“Maybe we have never left Arkham.”

“And Will and I are a dream, a delusion that you built for not being alone?” Hannibal says softly.

“Maybe…” He answers distantly, suddenly trapped into melancholia.

“Maybe not. I would love to prove to you how tangible you are. Let me take you back to bed.”

They move from the kitchen. While their steps recede, a supple shape jumps on the counter and bends with interest over the pan left here with part of its contents. The red cat looks for a while in the direction of the door through which they left and begins to gently lick the breakfast leftovers.

THE END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A very, very huge thank you to those who have followed me so far! I have to say that this is my first time writing in the English language, and I don't have a beta reader, so I know it's far from perfect. But I hope you liked this story, that was so important for me to write, and which enlighted my days all these months. kudos and comments are welcome, of course!


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